In the end, on Friday, the Russians ran away as best they could: on stolen bicycles, disguised, posing as locals. A few hours after the Ukrainian army began to advance towards the village of Zaliznychnoye in the Kharkiv region, hundreds of Russian soldiers based there had already left. Many of them left their own units. Only local residents remained in the region, shocked by 28 weeks of life under occupation.

“They just threw machine guns on the ground,” Elena Matviyenko told the Washington Post on Sunday.. A woman stood still disoriented in the middle of a village littered with craters and burnt-out vehicles, including a Russian tank loaded onto a trailer..

The first investigators from Kharkiv began to arrive to collect the bodies of civilians shot dead by Russians. Some corpses lay on the streets for months.

“I can’t believe we went through this in the 21st century,” said a tearful Matviyenko.

The hasty retreat of the Russian military from Zaliznichny is part of a new reality that surprised the world over the weekend. Troops that invaded Ukraine in February have now fled parts of the country they previously occupied.. Ukrainians in newly liberated villages in the Kharkiv region rejoice that their ordeal of fate is finally over. However, everyone thinks if it's really over.

“Only God knows if they will return,” said Tamara Kozinskaya, 75.. Her husband was killed by artillery fire shortly after the Russian troops arrived..

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Military experts are convinced that everything is still definitely not over. Russia still controls about a fifth of Ukraine and continues to shell several regions. There is also no guarantee that Ukraine will be able to defend the liberated territories..

“The counteroffensive liberates the territory, after that you need to control it and be ready to defend it,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said with caution..

But as they push deeper into Russian-controlled territory, Ukrainian soldiers want to believe the latest campaign is a possible tipping point.. Zaliznichnoe is a small village located 60 kilometers east of Kharkov. The locals began to return to normal life. On Sunday, for the first time in months, they were able to sleep in their own beds rather than in basements, as well as contact relatives in other regions.. Kozinskaya has not seen her daughter since February, although she lives only 20 kilometers from Zaliznychny. Now the daughter promised her mother that she would come for her as soon as the Ukrainian military opened access to the village..

“I was very afraid of the beginning of winter. We don't have electricity. And collecting firewood is already hard for me,” said a 75-year-old woman suffering from lung problems, clutching a piece of paper with instructions on what to do if she sees a mine..

Russian soldiers who occupied the village turned the local sawmill into a military base. From Zaliznychny, they fired at Ukrainian positions in the neighboring town. At first, the Russians did not terrorize the locals, Kozinskaya said..

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When they slaughtered pigs at an abandoned local farm, they sometimes allowed some of the villagers to take some of the meat.. But the occupation continued. Russian soldiers were rotated every month. So the occupiers became more aggressive. One of them asked Kozinskaya to “lend” her phone to him..

“I gave it to him so he could call his mother, but he took my SIM card,” she said..

A Ukrainian medic examined Galina Noskova, who was hit in the back by shrapnel when a shell landed in her yard in June. Woman's 87-year-old mother removed metal fragments from her body.

“They were still hot,” she said, adding that one Russian bandaged her.

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Residents of the Kharkiv region, with whom the Washington Post journalists spoke, said that the Russian occupiers treated them better than the residents of the Ukrainian regions to the west. The publication recalls that in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, after the liberation of the city, more than 450 bodies of local residents were found.. Many of them had signs of torture. These atrocities drew international condemnation.

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“I asked what they want from us. And they said: “We will either be here or they will throw us in jail,” she said..

Other villagers say that the invaders assured them that they did not want to fight against Ukraine. And only came to " The main rule of the Russian occupiers for local residents required them to sit quietly at home after six in the evening without electricity.. Violation of this requirement could end fatally, which was confirmed by the case of two men. They drank with the lights on,” said Maria Grigorova, who lived nearby.. The next morning she found the neighbors dead on the floor.

“Konstantin had two bullet holes in his head,” she said..

She and two of her friends buried the neighbors in the yard. The same friends of the woman dug up the bodies again on Sunday as Ukrainian investigators began gathering evidence of war crimes.. Kharkiv team found two more bodies during visit. One of the dead was a security guard. His remains rotted for months at the bottom of a gravel elevator at an asphalt plant.. Although the Russians used the elevator as a point for a sniper. One of the investigators several times could not resist throwing up while other officers collected the remains.

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“We are looking for evidence of war crimes,” said Sergey Bolvinov, chief investigator of the Kharkiv Regional Police.. His team was waiting for a detachment of sappers so that he cleared some areas.. Only after that, the investigators could collect the remains of the bodies..

The villagers said that the locals were afraid of the Russians. But when the invaders began to flee from the Ukrainian offensive, they even felt a little sorry for their yesterday's offenders..

Part of the Russian soldiers went by car in the first hours after the start of the offensive. The rest despaired. Some locals overheard the radio conversations of the Russian military. They begged their commanders to send someone to get them.

“They were told: “You are on your own”. They went into our houses to take away clothes so that the drones would not see them in uniform.. They took our bikes. Two military men pointed machine guns at my ex-husband so that he would give them the keys to the car,” Matvienko recalled..