Ukraine’s desperate struggle to defend Kharkiv

ANNA SITS in silence for most of the car journey from Kyiv to Kharkiv, her face contorted with worry. “The Russians come closer, closer, closer, but he’s just not listening to me,” she says. Anna made a point of visiting her 75-year-old father regularly, checking in on him at the simple brick house he built 45 years ago near Kharkiv’s glimmering Pechenihy reservoir, east of the city and close to the Russian border. This time, with the din of artillery in the background, she had come to persuade him to leave—to escape a Russian advance already enveloping Vovchansk, 25km to the north. After a hug and a few tears, the initial conversation does not go well. “The TV and radio say it can’t get worse,” insists Petro. “The Russians are losing. Sanctions, losses. Reinforcements are coming our way. They can’t come further.”