Canadian volunteer in Ukraine survives missile strikes after Russian retreat

The war in Ukraine hit uncomfortably close to home — literally — for Canadian volunteer Alex Nau when Russia unleashed a wave of retaliatory missile strikes in response to the lightning-swift advance of Ukrainian troops in the eastern part of the country.

Between Sunday night and Monday morning, four ultra-modern hypersonic missiles landed within metres of the apartment building he calls home in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.

Nau said there's a sense of joy on the streets now that more towns and villages have been pulled from the iron-fisted grip of the Russian army — tempered by a heavy sense of dread as the two militaries trade blows.

"It's like we're winning the war right now, and it's like Russia's kind of crumbling under their own leadership," Nau told CBC News in an interview from Zaporizhzhia.

"But man, we almost got killed last night. Four hypersonic missiles got launched and they have, like, a 200 kilogram or ... something crazy payload [warhead]. And they landed 25 or 50 meters from our apartment. It felt like the building was going to come down just from the shockwave."

Civilian infrastructure all up and down the frontline in Ukraine was pulverized by Russian strikes Monday as the country's president, Volodomyr Zelenskyy, renewed his call for western nations to brand Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.

"A total blackout in the Kharkiv & Donetsk regions RF [Russian Federation] terrorists remain terrorists & attack critical infrastructure. No military facilities, the goal is to deprive people of light & heat," Zelenskyy tweeted.

The missile strike wasn't the only time in the last few days that Nau — a volunteer with the Hero Society — cheated death. He said he and his team were delivering food in the villages surrounding the strategically important city of Izyum, located on the Donets River in Kharkiv province, as it was being recaptured from Russian forces.

As they drove out of the nearby city of Kharkiv, the second largest in the country, the Ukrainian counteroffensive was just beginning, he said — and all they could hear as they travelled the highway to Izyum was "bomb after bomb after bomb."

At a bomb-wrecked bridge, he said, he and his team (which includes American volunteers) helped to escort 600 evacuees from nearby towns and villages to safety.

"So one side behind us, 100 meters [away], is the Ukrainian checkpoint and 100 meters in front of us is the Russian checkpoint," he said. "They just watched us shuttle all these people across this bridge."

Nau said his team was determined to press on toward Izyum because, with the end of summer, people in the region can no longer rely on their gardens for food.

When the team neared the village of Petrivs'ke west of Izyum, he said, he realized they were "deep, deep, deep into no man's land" because they didn't see any Ukrainian military units in the vicinity.

"And it's not even just long range artillery. It's not just missiles. They can shoot mortars at you here," Nau said.

'We would have been dead there'

He said they delivered their food shipment at one location as quickly as they could, snapped photos for verification purposes and drove on to the next nearby location. Moments after they departed, the area where their vehicle was parked was hit with mortar fire.

To get out of the area, he said, they had to drive back over the same road "through the smoke and the smell of the gunpowder of where we had been five minutes earlier."

"Had we not left five minutes earlier, we would have been dead there," he added. "So, it was pretty wild."

The Ukrainian Army has recaptured over 2,800 square kilometres of territory in the northeast of the country and a military spokesperson said Monday that another 500 square kilometres has been reclaimed in the south since the counteroffensive was launched.

"We can say today that our success during the past two weeks was quite substantial," said Natalia Humenuik, who speaks for the Ukrainian military's southern command. "On various sections we have advanced by (between) four and several tens of kilometres."

That progress has come at a steep cost, said volunteer Sofia Bredun, the Ukrainian director of the Hero Society. The Canadian charity has been delivering food and medical supplies to frontline communities and hospitals.

"From my perspective it's significant and I'm really happy," said Bredun, who joined Nau on the deliveries near Izyum. "We have our lands back but I always keep in mind the price that we pay for it. The price of lives, of our soldiers, of our civilians."

Dominique Arel, chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa, said the loss of Izyum is significant for the Russians because it was a critical logistics hub for them — a lynchpin for their operations both in the northeast and in the eastern portion of Donbas.

'They barely fought and that is stunning'

The collapse of the front, he said, was simply breathtaking.

"They did not retreat orderly. It's a rout," Arel said. "It's a rout and they barely fought and that is stunning. I mean, just the front collapsing like this is very significant.'

The war is far from over, he added, but the momentum appears to have turned in favour of the Ukrainians.

The success to date of the counteroffensive could also serve as an important psychological boost on the geopolitical front, demonstrating to an increasingly skeptical and economically-challenged Europe that support for Ukraine produces results.

"So, the argument has been the more we arm the Ukrainians, the more the war will go on," said Arel. "Well, now there is a powerful counter argument that was already there. But now, there's certainly far more empirical evidence that it's the other way around.

"The faster we get all these weapons, the faster the war will end, because we can beat [the] demoralized, disorganized and corrupt Russian Army."