Ukrainian flags are once again waving over the villages of Stroyivka and Topoli in the Kharkiv Oblast, located in the so-called ‘gray zone’ near the border with Russia. The villages were liberated from the Russian occupiers last year, but it was dangerous to enter there due to large-scale mining. However, Ukrainian border guards found a way to do so and raised national flags there. 

The Russian army occupied a large part of the Kharkiv Oblast at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Armed Forces liberated these territories in September 2022.

Read more:

• This is what genocide looks like: Russian torture chambers in Ukraine 
• Russo-Ukrainian War. Day 213: More Russian war crimes in Kharkiv Oblast-447 bodies exhumed
• Kharkiv Oblast returns to life in Ukraine after six months of Russian occupation