(Note profanity in paragraph 2)
By Jonathan Landay
RUSKA LOZOVA, Ukraine May 15 (Reuters) - While three of his men heaped dark soil into a chin-high berm to shield their trench, Ohor Obolenskiy gestured on Sunday across sun-dappled fields to a tree-clad ridge line sweeping the nearby horizon.
“We can see the Russian positions from here and say, ‘Fuck you, Russians,’” the 35-year-old Ukrainian commander joshed in rough English, his grim face creasing into a wide grin.
The amalgam of National Guard and volunteers he leads seized Ruska Lozova in fierce fighting on May 8, four days into a counteroffensive that has thwarted Russia’s bid to seize nearby Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
The counter-offensive has been Ukraine's most successful since it expelled Russian troops from the north of the country and the area around the capital Kyiv at the end of March, and signals a new turning point in the battle for the east.
For the first week, the troops in Ruska Lozova said, Russian shelling was so intense they only could move about the now-devastated village at night.
While they remain ever-alert to the high explosives regularly hurled by Russian artillery and tanks, Obolenskiy and his men made little effort to conceal themselves from the foe hunkered along the ridge line three kilometers away.
One reason, they said as Reuters toured their positions, was because the patchy cloud made it difficult for Russian drones to target their positions. Another was because they believed the Russians, while trying to keep them pinned down, have been pulling their forces out in a withdrawal to their border. From there, they think, those troops are redeploying south to bolster a Russian drive to seize the entire Donbas region, which largely has stalled.
“There is less shelling from the Russians,” said Mikhayl, one of Obolenskiy’s lieutenants, giving only his nom de guerre as he sat in a basement ripe with the odor of the unbathed troops encamped in its gloom. “We think they are retreating.”
Yet, the troops holding the village, deserted by all but a few of its 5,000 residents and a horde of abandoned cats and dogs, are not ready to celebrate what some media outlets have begun hailing as their victory in the Battle of Kharkiv.
They still are fighting the Russians - they lost two soldiers on Saturday - whose helicopter gunships search for their positions in low-level runs to avoid the U.S.-made Stinger missiles with which Obolenskiy’s troops are armed. Moreover, Obolenskiy and his aides said they remained concerned that despite high loses in men and equipment, Russian President Vladimir Putin could launch a new offensive against Kharkiv, 20 km south.