Once the center of Ukraine's hopes, the town of Orikhiv now lies in ruins

A Ukrainian serviceman smokes sitting on a bench as a local resident clears debris near a building damaged in the Russian air raid in the town of Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Friday, Apr. 5, 2024. ORIKHIV, Ukraine | Once the starting point of Ukraine’s 2023 summer counteroffensive, the small town of Orikhiv in southern Ukraine now finds itself in the middle of a two-way artillery firing range.

In the center of the nave, someone had gathered pieces of the bomb in a makeshift altar, while from the shredded screen known as an iconostasis, a miraculously-spared icon of Jesus looks on disapprovingly at the surrounding devastation, his fingers crossed as if to wish it away. After weeks of speculation and cryptic messaging from government and military officials, Ukrainian forces last June had launched a series of counterattacks around the city, signaling the beginning of the much-anticipated summer counteroffensive.

“We worked very effectively, firing between 100 and 120 shells a day,” chimed in fresh-faced Danyl, the 22-year-old commander of the battery. “But it wasn’t enough.” Now, as the Russians have been pressing their advantage on multiple axes of the sprawling, more than 600-mile front line in southern and eastern Ukraine, it falls on Danyl and his men from the 118th Brigade to keep them at bay — even though the stocks of 155 mm artillery shells they rely on are running dangerously low.

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