Russian invasion reaches 6 months on Ukraine’s Independence Day

KYIV, Ukraine — A hail of shrapnel from kamikaze drones ripped through the tent where off-duty Ukrainian border guards were sleeping near a crossing with Belarus, three hours north of Ukraine’s capital.

Viktor Derevyanko woke to scalding pain, his body burning. Blood spilled from his hand as he tried to wipe his face. A piece of metal had traveled through his arm and stomach and into the muscle around his heart.

“I couldn’t get my bearings,” said Derevyanko, the deputy head of the unit. “Only on the third explosion did I manage to fall out of bed and try to find at least someplace to hide, because the explosions weren’t ending.”

A months-long examination by The Washington Post of the Ukrainian military’s successful defense of Kyiv is based on extensive interviews with more than 100 people, including many of the country’s top political and military leaders. Here are some key findings:

1. In the run-up to the war, Ukrainian political officials downplayed the likelihood of a full-scale Russian invasion, but the Ukrainian military was making critical preparations.

2. Russia directly and through an intermediary tried to get the Ukrainian government to capitulate in the initial hours of the war.

This year, Ukraine’s Independence Day falls on the same day that marks six months since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. The two events feel inextricably, indelibly linked: Ukrainians will celebrate more than three decades of independence from the Soviet Union while remaining on high alert for a military escalation by the Kremlin.

“Tomorrow is an important day for all of us,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday. “And that is why this day, unfortunately, is also important for our enemy. We must be aware that tomorrow hideous Russian provocations and brutal strikes are possible.”

Every morning at 10:39, the EC57 train pulls out of Berlin’s train station for a 10-hour trip to the Polish border, on the fringes of the war in Ukraine.

On board are Ukrainians who have been wrestling with the agonizing decision of whether to return home six months into the war.

Some, missing their loved ones, have decided to go back for good. Others sit nervously after taking the plunge to visit relatives for the first time since fleeing. A few who never really left make their way back from temporary breaks away from the sirens and bombings.

KYIV, Ukraine — At a military position near the front line, members of a Ukrainian military unit snickered as a soldier with tattooed arms scrawled a phallic symbol on an artillery shell designed for an M777 howitzer cannon.

At a separate position, a Ukrainian soldier loaded a shell that read “Hello from Texas” into a medium-range cannon. Seconds before it fired with a loud boom, the operator announced, “from Texas” in a gleeful Slavic accent.

The emergence of slogans and symbols emblazoned on U.S.-made artillery — originally a creative outlet for Ukrainian soldiers serving in the country’s east — has become a growing and lucrative fundraising tactic for Ukrainians in the nearly six-month war.

MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — First came the boom. Then the air raid siren. “Turn off the machines! Turn off the machines!” yelled a mail sorter.

Moments before, workers in this southern Ukrainian city at the regional headquarters of Ukraine’s national postal service, Ukrposhta, had been absorbed in their early-morning shift: taking packages of varying shapes and sizes from a conveyor belt and distributing them according to their final destinations.

Now, they scrambled to safety as the sound of the explosions grew louder. “It’s coming closer and closer!” yelled an employee, huddled in an entranceway with a group of colleagues. Forty-five minutes later, the all-clear was given. Slightly behind schedule — time they would make up in short order — the sorting facility’s roughly 45 employees returned to work.

KYIV, Ukraine — Over the past six months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has become an inspiring wartime leader and champion of his country. During an hour-long, wide-ranging interview earlier in August with The Washington Post at the presidential office — where hallways are kept dark and are lined with sandbags to protect against Russian attack — Zelensky discussed U.S. warnings about Russia preparing to launch a full-scale invasion and if he believed them.

The following is a translated and lightly edited transcript of excerpts from the interview.

A Russian rocket attack hit the Chaplyne railway station in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region Wednesday, killing at least 22 people and injuring 50, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky reported the strike during his virtual appearance at a U.N. Security Council meeting, and he said four passenger cars caught fire. Search and rescue workers were sifting through the debris at the site and warned of more fatalities.

“Unfortunately the death toll could increase,” Zelensky said. “This is our life every day. This is how Russia got prepared for this U.N. session.”