Terror, grief and rising smoke leave streets completely empty as Ukrainians flee fiercest attack ever on border town

Russian forces launched a surprise attack Friday morning in an attempt to open a new front in the war.

Vovchansk, a town 5 km from the Ukrainian-Russian border, was one of its targets.

Russian forces reportedly advanced a kilometer before Ukrainian reinforcements held them back.

Deborah Haynes from Sky was there.

Smoke hung in the air on the road leading to the border town of Vovchansk in northeastern Ukraine after a surprise Russian offensive.

The woods surrounding the road caught fire amid the violent bombardments.

Sky News followed a rescue team as they rushed to Vovchansk in a white van to help evacuate residents, amid fears of a wider attack from Moscow.

The streets of the part of town we entered were largely deserted.

We parked on a residential street of bungalows.

Halfway there was a group of five elderly residents gathered around a bench. They appeared in no hurry to flee, despite the danger and warnings from authorities to the town’s approximately 3,000 residents.

The rescuers – a man and a woman, both volunteers, dressed in military fatigues – stopped in front of a house.

The man knocked on the door and window, but there was no answer.

Then the front gate of the house next door opened and a small, white-haired woman wearing a bright orange scarf appeared.

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Valentyna, 74, said her neighbors had already left but she planned to stay.

The rescue team gently tried to change her mind, telling her it wasn’t safe.

Suddenly there was a boom.

This seemed to help convince Valentyna that they were right.

She agreed to leave, but had to act quickly: every moment spent on the ground, within range of Russian artillery fire, rockets and drones, represents a high risk for the rescue team.

As Valentyna changed her socks and scarf, she explained that life in Vovchansk had been difficult for a while. “But last night it got a lot worse,” she said.

Russian forces had occupied the city and swaths of northeastern Ukraine in the early months of the full-scale war, before being pushed back by the Ukrainian army.

However, in recent months, shelling on the Russian side of the border has intensified, although everyone we spoke to said the scale of the Russian assault in the early hours of Friday morning was unlike anything like this. that they had ever known.

With a few belongings gathered in two plastic bags, it was time for Valentyna to leave.

She saw one of her rescuers use a drill to lock her front door.

He also made sure the exterior door was secure before jumping over it while Valentyna got into the van.

The team fled.

On the way out of town, the fire in the forest seemed bigger.

The horizon was also filled with black smoke from distant clashes.

A few hours earlier, we had visited a village near Vovchansk, which had become a makeshift gathering point for evacuation teams and fleeing residents.

Dozens of mostly elderly men and women, looking stressed and scared, waited with bags full of belongings – even a pet cat and dog – to board a large coach loaded with take them to a safer place, where they would be given a place to sleep and eat.

Slowly, they climbed inside.

A woman called Maryna, sitting on the bus next to her husband Yevhen, described the horror of the previous night.

“The fighter jets were dropping bombs. There were so many that it sounded like the sky was exploding. It was so scary, so loud,” she said.

The couple explained that, like many residents of this part of the country, they had survived the suffering of the Russian occupation.

“We went through a lot. We were both tortured and interrogated by the Russians,” Maryna said.

Her husband added: “We don’t want to go back there again.”

Maryna continued: “There is a risk that if they occupy again, they will detain us again. No one knows if this time we would come out alive.”

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Once everyone was on board, the coach left, but soon more evacuees arrived, each with a story about this new crisis.

Another woman, also called Valentyna, cried as she described having to abandon her husband in Vovchansk when she fled.

“He didn’t want to leave,” she said. “Maybe he’ll change his mind.”

Tamaz Gambarashvili, the city’s mayor, was also at the evacuation assembly point.

He said about 500 people had been evacuated – all voluntarily – during the day.

“Since last night, massive bombing of the city has started,” the mayor told Sky News.

“Our people have never seen this level of bombing, never before.”

Two people were killed and at least five injured during the assault.

Asked if he feared that the Russians would seize these lands again, Mr. Gambarashvili replied: “We do not think that they will occupy this territory again because we believe in our armed forces. They will fight back and push them back.”

However, he said the Russians inflicted enormous damage on Vovchansk.

Asked if he had a message for the Russian invaders, the mayor said: “I would like to say: enough is enough. Enough killing, enough destruction… You have to stop this war.”