Elderly brothers eke out life among ruins of Ukraine war

The two houses in what had been no-man's land between Russian and Ukrainian forces are badly damaged by shelling, there is no central power or heating and the surrounding fields are heavily mined, making them unworkable.

Yet the Kovalyov brothers - Stepan who is 80 and Volodymyr who is 77 - and their wives have decided to stay in the isolated farming village of Posad-Pokrovske in southern Ukraine to live out their days in the place they know best.

It will not be easy. The elderly couples survive off meagre state pensions and rely on relatives and volunteers for food.

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Stepan and his wife Tetyana, 79, live in a cellar next to their old bungalow, which, like many other buildings in Posad-Pokrovske, was all but flattened in the fighting.

"We are 80, we've worked all our lives, in the same garden and now we're waiting for death," Stepan told Reuters on a visit to the village in late January. "What else can we be waiting for?"

Volodymyr and Tetiana, who is 76, sleep in the last room of their house that still has a roof over it.

Tens of thousands of Ukrainians face similar challenges as Europe's biggest conflict since World War II approaches its second year. Many fled towns and villages close to the frontlines when war raged around them, although some, the elderly among them, refused to leave.

Russian troops reached Posad-Pokrovske, located some 36 km (22 miles) northwest of the city of Kherson, on Feb. 25 last year, the day after Russia launched the full-scale invasion it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine.

It was as far as they were able to push north, and the area around the small settlement became a no-go zone between enemy forces.

The ground is now littered with ammunition boxes, bullet casings and burned out Russian tanks. Mines lay scattered, two unexploded missiles protrude from the earth nearby, deep, narrow trenches snake through fields and house after house lays in ruins.

Under Fire

Volodymyr did not leave the village despite the conflict, and Tetiana only left for a few weeks with her grand-daughter early on. They recalled heavy fighting throughout the following months. In October, the house was hit by what they believe was a tank shell. They were inside.

"There was lots of smoke, I couldn't see anything," Tetiana recalled. "It was raining and parts of the roof were falling in."

The clashes at that time coincided with a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the area that eventually pushed the Russians back across the Dnipro River in early November, the biggest setback of the war so far for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In the next street, Stepan and Tetyana had taken refuge in their cellar when their house was destroyed in fighting in May.

They left Posad-Pokrovske shortly after, visiting occasionally to check on their property and on Volodymyr and Tetiana.

When the couple returned shortly after the counter-offensive was complete and the Russians had been routed, they found their livestock gone, four cows, along with dozens of chickens and pigs. Before the war, they grew barley and vegetables. Now the fields are treacherous with mines and unexploded ordinance.

The cellar, which their late son Aleksandr built as a food store, has become their home, lit by candles when they are there.

They access it via a small staircase in a garden covered in debris and a thin layer of snow.

Every day is a slog. Volodymyr cycles to nearby shops for food, sometimes supplemented by packages handed out by charities. The couples chop wood for their stoves and collect rain water from the roof in a bucket or from the village well if the generator is working.

Volodymyr and Tetiana's grown-up grand-daughter Svetlana, who is disabled, helps them tend their one cow and rooster.

Stepan and Volodymyr enjoy the odd glass of horilka, a Ukrainian spirit, together, although the couples keep largely to themselves.

When Reuters showed Stepan and Tetyana a photograph taken of them sitting in their basement that featured on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Instagram account in early January, they were briefly taken aback.

"Now Putin knows where we are!" quipped Stepan.