Ukraine: in the Mykolaiv region, these families who hope to return home

Audio 01:18

Ludmila Kozlova, her 13-year-old daughter and a friend of her daughter.

© Boris Vichith / RFI

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

The counter-offensive continues in the region of Kherson, in southern Ukraine.

Ukrainian armed forces have been trying to retake the city from Russian occupation since March, but say they expect strong resistance.

Not enough to give optimism to families of displaced people who hope to return home.

Our special envoys went to meet them in the village of Kovalivka.

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With our special correspondents in the Mykolaiv region,

While waiting for electricity and the Internet to come back for their online lessons, the children of Mykola Shvets are having fun with their dog.

The family who lived north of Kherson fled this summer, but Mykola keeps in touch.

We have a group on Telegram and those who stayed tell how it goes.

They keep shooting.

Kherson and the Russian artillery are not far away.

Civilians continue to die.

We are of course waiting for Kherson to be liberated, because that will move their artillery away, it will be calmer and then we can go back there.

A few kilometers further, on the long Avenue of Victory, Ludmila Kozlova, hairdresser from Mykolaiv, found refuge with her 13-year-old daughter, a friend of her daughter and her mother, in a house without running water, with cracked walls and to the leaky roof.

Although she dreams of returning to the comfort of her townhouse, she is preparing to spend the winter here.

The neighbors come to cut firewood for us so that we can have some warmth.

We don't really have a choice, we have to prepare for winter.

Nobody says the war will end tomorrow.

I really thought we could celebrate the new year at home with a tree and all the loved ones, but… we'd like it to end quickly, and it's not up to us.

Every day, upon waking, Ludmila consults her phone on the lookout for the slightest information.

This will remain my ritual, she says, until victory.

►Read also: In Mykolaiv, the population is closely following the counter-offensive on Kherson by the Ukrainian army

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