Amidst the smoke and rubble, Pavlivka may seem like a dubious prize. But for Ukrainian troops who defended it last week after retaking it from Russian forces three weeks ago, it was seen as a rare success when much of Ukraine and the rest of the world was shocked by the fall of the last two cities in the east. Luhansk province under overwhelming Russian firepower. In this small corner of the adjacent Donetsk province, a motorized brigade confidently bucked the trend. “I told you when I saw you that we would have broken free somewhere,” said the unit commander triumphantly. “Well, we have.” Like most serving officers in the Ukrainian military, the commander, a 30-year-old major who leads an anti-tank unit, asked to be identified only by his code name, Kryha, which means Ice. Pavlivka, just a few miles from the nearest Russian positions, remains a precarious stronghold for the Ukrainians. The Russians have bombarded the village so heavily since losing it that only a small group of Ukrainian soldiers fell in at the entrance. The few civilians still living there were hiding, nowhere to be seen. Villages, towns and cities across eastern and southern Ukraine have suffered similar devastation as Russian forces have made a slow advance over the past five months, pounding Ukrainian troops with relentless artillery fire and killing tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians. However, the recapture of Pavlivka was a welcome turnaround for Ukrainian troops in the area after months on the back foot. It also gave them a close view of the enemy and what they saw gave them confidence. “People had to believe in themselves, see the enemy, see them being captured, killed, see that they are also easily hit,” said Senior Lieutenant Andriy Mikheichenko, deputy commander of an anti-tank missile unit. “In addition, we have a lot of new hires. These people also needed to feel successful.”
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Ukraine’s 53rd Brigade captured the village on June 21, he said. Throughout the night they negotiated the surrender of 10 Russian prisoners, including the commandant stationed in the village. Kryha, who led the operation, said his troops caught the Russians off guard with both the timing and direction of the attack. “This was a complete surprise to them,” he said. “We surrounded them so they couldn’t go forward or back. They were blocked. We also blocked aid that could have helped them.” Sitting in underground operations rooms at his base, his walls lined with maps and videos of the surrounding countryside, he said the Ukrainians had planned their attack for a month before making their move, to ensure minimal casualties. The preparation paid off and they secured the village in 48 hours, with only one soldier killed and three wounded, he said. The enemy forces consisted of about 150 men, half of them Russian marines and the other half pro-Russian forces from the separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, but he said they were complacent and not very smart. On a visit to Pavlivka on Sunday, the commander walked through the wreckage of three Russian armored vehicles in the central square. One vehicle was reduced to a jumbled jumble of metal, its turret blown off with such force that it was left 100 meters off the road. UPDATED July 21, 2022, 12:39 am ET The central buildings were heavily damaged and destroyed by fire. “Do you see what this war is doing?” said the major. Further along the road, the Russians had used a residence as their headquarters. An abandoned SUV with the Russian code Z stood in the yard among the debris from the battle. Here the Russian commander was caught. “He came out and immediately put his hands up,” Kryha said. There was brief street fighting, but the Russians put up little fight. “They realized it no longer made sense,” the commander said. “They couldn’t go on.” The Ukrainians had not planned to bog down with taking prisoners, but in the end they took 10 of the Russians. The Russian commander asked to be allowed to retreat without weapons back to his side, but the Ukrainians refused, Kryha said. His men showed less interest in the Ukrainians fighting on the side of the Russians. Dozens of them were killed in the battle, he said, and the rest fled. The enemy prisoners were all members of an infantry brigade from the Russian naval base at Simferopol in Crimea, said Lt. Mikheichenko, who saw and spoke with the prisoners. “They were well-spoken, educated and well-equipped,” he said. “But they were all tired and unmotivated.” They had been fighting since February, he said, first in the city of Kherson, which Russian forces captured early in the war. The unit was then thrown into the battle for the port of Mariupol and fought a week-long campaign against Ukrainian troops for control of the Azovstal steel plant. Then, without a break, the marines were sent to front-line positions in Pavlivka. Among some of the belongings, uniforms and weapons seized by the Ukrainians was a diary belonging to one of the Russians killed in the battle. A sergeant from the Siberian city of Kemerovo, he had written a loving farewell letter to his wife. “Maybe they sensed something was coming,” Lt. Mikheichenko said. The lieutenant provided photos of some of the journal entries to the New York Times. The sergeant also wrote about an unsuccessful attack by the Russians in Mariupol and the terrifying experience of coming under fire from Ukrainian forces. The next day he wrote: “They said there will be another attack. I don’t really want to go, but what can I do?’ He also wrote about looting Russian soldiers. “Kids would go to apartments and take out big bags. Raid in all its glory,” he wrote. “Some took only what they needed and some took everything from an old TV to a large plasma TV, computers and expensive alcohol.” Handing the Russians a defeat was of particular importance to the 53rd Brigade. At the start of the war in February, the brigade was defending the town of Volnovakha, which guards a strategic highway to Mariupol. But in mid-March they were forced to surrender the city and retreat about 20 miles, losing even Pavlivka. They returned to the town of Vuhledar, a largely deserted complex of battered high-rise apartment buildings where a few beleaguered residents huddled in doorways and cooked over wood fires in backyards. Without electricity or running water, they said they relied on the military for supplies and protection from thieves. A retired miner named Volodymyr, 65, sat on a bench in the yard on the north side of a building that residents have learned is better protected from Russian artillery. “I didn’t think about leaving,” he said. “My wife is buried here and I will rest with her.” Despite the disaster, Pavlivka had provided the necessary impetus, Kryha said. “We turned back, we turned back, we turned back,” he said. “Then we stood up and stopped. We gained power and resources. People have gained more experience. Now they realized they can really fight.” Kamila Hrabchuk contributed reporting from Kurakhove, Ukraine.
