GalleryApplauded in the early days, Kyiv's offensive in the Russian region of Kursk has also become a source of anguish for the Ukrainian border population. Le Monde photographer Adrien Vautier followed soldiers and civilians in this unexpected stage of the war.
Before the start of the Ukrainian incursion into Russia, residents of the Sumy region noticed a larger-than-usual number of military convoys on the forest roads not far from the border with the Kursk region. But if the signs were there, no one – Ukrainians or Russians alike – could have guessed that Kyiv's troops would cross the nearby demarcation line into Russian Federation soil at dawn on August 6. The majority of the experienced soldiers deployed in the area were not even informed of the objective until the day before the operation. The secret was well kept.
The town of Sumy quickly became the obligatory crossing point for thousands of Ukrainian soldiers speeding along in armored vehicles covered with a white triangle, the symbol of this offensive. For a country that has been invaded and bombed on a regular basis since February 2022, this transposition of the war to Russian territory has a taste of revenge. Images of soldiers marching on enemy flags, parading through Russian villages and taking prisoners of war have been shared en masse on social media. Children waved Ukrainian flags on the road leading to the border.
Then, very quickly, the exaltation of the offensive – a means for Ukraine, according to its President Volodymyr Zelensky, to gain a position of strength in future negotiations with Russia – gave way to concern. While part of the population rejoiced, there were fears of Russian reprisals. Artillery fire on the Sumy region, almost customary until then, has now been replaced by strikes with devastating guided aerial bombs. And thousands of civilians, forced to evacuate border villages, have fled.
On a road towards the border between Ukraine and Russia, in the Sumy region, August 23, 2024. On the road between the Russian-Ukrainian border and Sumy, Sumy oblast, August 15, 2024. Children wave to cars at a checkpoint at the entrance to Sumy, August 21, 2024. Oleg, 52, in the village of Tokari, Sumy region, on August 25, 2024. He was wounded by shards of glass from a bombing that killed his wife, Lyudmila, 54. He was in the house, and his wife in the garden. Neighbors cover windows blown out by a Russian bomb explosion in their neighbors' garden, in the village of Tokari, Sumy district, on August 25, 2024. One victim and one injured. Jenia and Dima, in the village of Tokari, in the Sumy region, on August 25, 2024. Their mother, Lyudmila, was killed by a bomb explosion in her garden. In the early hours of the morning, smoke from a Russian bombing raid rises into the sky over Sumy on August 17, 2024. A children's park in downtown Sumy, August 12, 2024. The church in the village of Kindrativka, less than 3 kilometers from Russia, on August 21, 2024. An Orthodox mass in a church, Sumy, August 20, 2024. The Vostok-SOS association evacuates 77-year-old Raisa Usenko, who is unable to walk, to Yunakivka, Sumy oblast, on August 12, 2024. A bombardment hit the parking lot of a building in Sumy at around 6 am on August 17, 2024. Ukrainian army soldiers on the road to Russia, Sumy oblast, August 12, 2024. Mykola Toryanyk is the mayor of the village of Khotin, but also of 14 other surrounding localities, including the village of Kindrativka. On August 21, 2024, he stands in the Kindrativka school, destroyed a week earlier by a Russian glider bomb. The Kindrativka village school, destroyed by a gliding bomb in mid-August 2024, August 21, 2024. The village is located just a few kilometers from Russia. Ukrainian firefighters evacuate an elderly woman after a missile hit a residential area, Sumy, August 24, 2024. A Ukrainian civilian inspects the remains of a missile that has just fallen on a residential area in the town of Sumy, August 24, 2024. A missile fell on a residential area in the Sumy region on the evening of August 24, 2024. A soldier from Ukraine's 117th Territorial Defense Brigade waits for firing orders at the entrance to a shelter in the Sumy region, August 23, 2024. A soldier of the 117th Territorial Defense Brigade of Ukraine, in the Sumy region, August 23, 2024. This Ukrainian position is 1 kilometer from the border with Russia. Since the start of the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region, the situation on this part of the front has become much more intensive. Two artillerymen from Ukraine's 117th Territorial Defense Brigade adjust their mortar after firing, in the Sumy region, August 23, 2024. A Russian prisoner captured the day before in the Kursk region, Sumy, August 15, 2024. A guard at a detention center for Russian POWs in the Sumy region, August 22, 2024. A detention center for Russian POWs in Sumy oblast, August 22, 2024. Nearly 80% of them are now conscripts. Many young Russians doing their military service in the area bordering Ukraine were taken prisoner during the Kursk operation. A detention center in Sumy oblast, August 22, 2024, where just over 100 Russian POWs are being held. They can stay from a few days to several weeks. This site has held almost 350 prisoners since the start of the military operation in Russia. The Red Cross visits them regularly and allows them to send handwritten letters to Russia. A detention center for Russian POWs in Sumy oblast, August 22, 2024. They were doing their military service in the border zone when the Ukrainian offensive began. Street art depicting the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in prison, in downtown Sumy, August 12, 2024.
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