At great risk to themselves, the villagers shared tips and Google Maps locations with local officials, turning the highway running between the Russian border and Kyiv into a major military defeat for Moscow. The intelligence they obtained helped launch Ukrainian fire on several Russian units.
The strategy underpinned fierce Ukrainian resistance as villagers put themselves and their homes on the front lines, turning quiet rural life into an uncomfortable and sometimes deadly coexistence with Russian troops.
Natalia Mohilny, a housewife in Novi Bykiv, said, “Everyone here was doing everything for our boys to complete the movement of the Russian army,” called to the soldiers’ locations in and around the village, where the locals said that the Russians had established one. Mobile crematoriums to take out the dead.
Ms Mohilny’s own two-story home was shelled during the exchange, and a gunfight with Ukrainian troops eventually leveled the village’s main hospital, where Russian soldiers kept ammunition and armored personnel carriers.
“No one wants destruction, but we Russians wanted even less,” she said. “Not having a fireplace means we’ll have to wait to use a wood oven, but that’s okay.”
Ukrainian officials and defense analysts said attacks against incoming Russian formations prevented vital reinforcements and supplies from reaching Kyiv from the east, leaving fewer and fewer supplies to Moscow’s troops. By the end of March, Russia had decided that its attempt to capture Kyiv had failed and had resettled its forces to the east of the country.
Russia’s most concentrated push on Kyiv came from the north, where successive columns of armor tried to take the capital. But the Russians had long relied on a supply route on Highway 7, a 230-mile route from the Ukrainian city of Sumy near Kyiv. It was there that the Ukrainian resistance deepened the organizational problems facing the Russians.
Military analysts say that the Russian military was unable to solve many of the logistical problems of the Soviet Union-era Red Army. Throughout history, military problems have undermined many military operations, with the military facing tight budgets, sometimes skimping on logistics to focus on new weapons and combat forces.
One of the largest battles fought around Highway 7 was around the Kyiv suburb of Brovry, where two regiments of the 90th Guards Tank Division of Russia were attacked by Ukrainian antitank weapons and artillery attacks, which were in front of the Russian column. and aimed at the rear.
Tetyana Chornovol, a former Ukrainian lawmaker who fought Russian troops with anti-tank weapons at the Battle of Brovary, said intelligence provided by villagers on the highway was vital to artillery units.
Russian-occupied villagers on this road in late February struggled to inform Ukrainian authorities about the status of Russian troops, artillery and tanks. At the beginning of the occupation, Ukrainians called the point of contact they were most familiar with, the police.
“There were very professional divisions of Russian troops traveling between Sumy and Brovari, and these divisions tried to hide in the forests and therefore the information was important,” said Kyiv region police chief Andrey Nebitov.
To streamline the process for Ukrainian defenders, the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation launched chatbots on the popular Telegram messaging app, which lets Ukrainians share the locations of Russian soldiers online in a single database that can be accessed through the country’s security service. Gone from The capital’s Kyiv digital app, which once helped people pay parking tickets and notify residents of temporary water cuts, was reconfigured to allow users to view Russian military activities and view them as military personnel of the armed forces. to help provide employees.
Oleg Zhdanov, an independent military expert from Ukraine, said: “The information was given to all general staff and it was checked, triangulated with other data and if the information was confirmed we would shoot to kill.” ” “The information was especially important in the first weeks of the conflict when columns of armor were coming straight down the road.”
In the weeks that followed, he said, the ability to withhold fuel, water and food supplies helped dampen the performance of Russia’s troops around Kyiv.
The platforms gave instructions to provide “location, movement, quantity of military equipment and quantity of personnel captured”. Russian soldier.
“Whatever I had on my phone, I deleted it as soon as I sent it,” said Natalia Yermak, a villager from Staryi Bykiv.
Others were less fortunate.
Her father said that in mid-March, 15 Russian soldiers broke into the nearby home of Victoria Andrusha, who was sending Russian armor types and numbers to a Ukrainian police officer. He said he was taken into custody on March 24 and since then there has been no trial.
By the time the Russians retreated from their attempt on Kyiv, they were already convinced they were surrounded by enemies.
Galina, a retired woman from the village of Priputny, who was on her way to the Russian troops and exit from the Kyiv region, said that the Russian soldiers, as they were leaving, commanded her home, where dozens of people were bedridden. Stayed the night in, on the floor and in the yard.
“When they left, they set it on fire and left behind a fire,” she said.