Photo. yahoo!news

KAZACH'YA LOKNYA, Russia, March 19, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The soundtrack is the distant sound of artillery and the houses all bear signs of gunfire and explosions.
 
There are only a handful of inhabitants in the Russian village of Kazachya Loknya, which has just been recaptured from Ukrainian forces.
 
Valentina Marchenko, in a red hooded sweatshirt, said she never considered leaving -- even when other inhabitants were evacuated by Russian soldiers after they retook the village.
 
The 61-year-old milkmaid said she wants to find out what happened to her brother who "disappeared on the way to the farm last August".
 
"They told me he'd been injured by a drone or something," she told AFP.
 
"Now I don't know if he's alive."
 
It was around the time that Ukrainian forces captured the village in an unprecedented counter-offensive on Russian soil -- two and a half years into Russia's campaign in Ukraine.
 
It was retaken on March 12 as Russian forces pressed a steady advance.
 
Marchenko said the village had 158 inhabitants before the war came.
 
Now, she said there are four -- along with chickens, cats and stray dogs.
 
 
- Body in a courtyard -
 
The road leading to Kazachya Loknya, located just outside the town of Sudzha in Russia's Kursk region, is still closed to civilians.
 
The side of the road is littered with the carcasses of military vehicles -- the vast majority of them belonging to the Ukrainian army.
 
Some have been gutted by drones or missiles, others caught in gunfire.
 
The roar of artillery fire can be heard for miles around -- a sign that the fighting is continuing.
 
In Kazachya Loknya, a soldier from the Akhmat battalion, originally from Chechnya in southern Russia, guided a team of AFP reporters.
 
"This is a shelter. This is a warehouse" used by Ukrainians, said the soldier, who goes by the military nickname "Lastochka" (Swallow).
 
He picked up an empty ammunition box marked: "Cartridges for weapons".
 
In the courtyard of a house lay the body of a Ukrainian soldier in uniform, wrapped in a blanket.
 
No one knows when or how he died. Nor does anyone know when or how he will be returned to Ukraine or buried.
 
 
- 'No respite' -
 
Yury Tarasenko, a 44-year-old bricklayer, also stayed behind.
 
In the courtyard of his home, there is an earthen mound topped by a cross.
 
It is the grave of his partner whom he had to bury there since "the Ukrainians would not let me bury her in the cemetery" because of the ongoing intense fighting.
 
"She died on August 24," Tarasenko said, sobbing.
 
"She was handicapped," he said, adding that she had died because of a lack of medical care.
 
Even in his grief, he had kind words for Ukrainian soldiers, saying they were "normal men you could talk to".
 
"They gave us water and bread," he said. "They told us themselves: 'We're not happy we came here.'"
 
But he is opposed to talk of a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.
 
"We should not give them (the Ukrainian army) even one month of respite, under no pretext," he said.
 
"They will end up pulling themselves together and come back."