The Ukrainians put revenge in the fight for the Black Sea coast

in their base in the no man's land outside the South Ukrainian city of Mykolajiw, volunteers of the Cherson Brigade refine their shooting skills on a paper target disc by Vladimir Putin. Dozens of bullet holes spice the face of the Russian leader - one that they would rather practice personally.

Apart from that, however, you have another way to take revenge - and get your own life, your love and your home back. Because in the east, over 50 miles highly contested area, is her hometown of Cherson, which fell to the Russians right at the beginning of the war.

"We have defended Cherson as best we were able to defend, but we were inferior, so we withdrew to defend Mykolajiw and the rest of the Ukraine," says a brigadem member, who is known under the nickname "helicopter". "Now we want to get it back."

To do this, Helicopter and his comrades have to prevail on the southern front - the fight with Russia for control over the Black Sea coast of Ukraine. Internationally, they attract much less attention than the fights in the eastern Donbass region further north. It is strategic for both sides.

For the Russians, Cherson is the only city you controlled on the west side of the Ukrainian river Dnipro, which shares the country in East and West. It offers a starting point to conquer Mykolajiw - where an attack in February failed - and then drive west to take Odessa, the most important trade port of Ukraine. That would make the country an inland state and stand in front of the economic ruin.

For the Ukrainians, taking Cherson means the liberation of an estimated 150,000 citizens who are currently living under Russian occupation. But the goals would not stop here. Cherson would again be a potential starting point in the Crimea and would recapture the peninsula that Putin annexed in 2014.

In the meantime, the two armies in the lawn between Mykolajiw and Cherson, a flat agricultural level that has become a Flanders in the steppe. Artillery bikes romp around the control of tiny, abandoned hamlet - some of them are now razed to the ground, with non -collected corpses in the streets. Soldiers crawl on dangerous information missions through fields, hoping to avoid hedges with explosive traps and enemy drones. The summer heat on the Black Sea is overwhelming. And since no side has made a breakthrough, bases already look semi-permanent.

You work in a disused farmhouse and have a kitchen full of cabbage and onions as well as some old sofas under a veranda on which tea is served. Helicopter's comrade Eduard Leonov, who plays in a folk band, even has his guitar.

"We are shooting the Russian positions and trying to clear the sections they occupied, but it is a slow process," added the helicopter when artillery sounded in the distance. "They are well dug in their trenches and have placed many country mines."

A snapshot of the slow grinding of the battle is the current wild struggle for Davydiv Brid, a hamlet with 1,200 inhabitants next to a shallow river crossing on the border between the districts of Mykolaji and Cherson. His name means roughly "Davids Ford".

In the event of a advance last month, Ukrainian armed forces fought for it in Soviet T-64 tanks and combat vehicles and freed 20 further settlements. But Davydiv Brid himself remains in Russian hand, according to Roman Kostenko, a local deputy who is also a Ukrainian paratrooper.

"We did well to get even close to Davydiv Brid," said Mr. Kostenko, whose house was happily looted in a neighboring village of the intruders. "But it is on a hill, which makes it easy for the Russians to defend themselves."

The intake of Davydiv Brid would bring the Ukrainian armed forces in striking distance to the T2205, a highway to which the Russian garrison in Cherson ranks out of the east. As with the Donbass battle, however, commanders in the southern front say that they will only be successful if they get a lot more western weapons.

"Please let this tell people in Great Britain," asked Mr. Kostenko. "For a few artillery systems that we have, the Russians have hundreds."

The spearhead that Davydiv attacks Brid is better equipped than most others. Volunteer associations such as the KHerson brigade mainly only have rifles and partly support themselves on "Roadkill" weapons, which were picked up by Russian armed forces. In her headquarters, for example, there is a half -disassembled tank defense mine in a hallway and at first glance looks like an extremely dangerous door stop.

"We try to repair it so that we can use it," said Mr. Leonov, who also tries to repair a Russian armored fist that stands next to his guitar. "We have to take everything we can get."

Mr. Leonov and Helicopter at least have combat experience because they fought in Donbass in 2014. Many of the other soldiers are newly recruited civilians, for whom the Graben War of the Old School can be as demoralizing as it is frightening.

"The village near our base can be shot at 350 times in one day, and we have no answer," said a volunteer.

"People ask themselves: 'Why am I waiting for death here?' But our commander at least talks to us and says: 'Sorry guys, we have nothing, help is on the way. So trust him and fight.

"Some have problems with alcohol or discipline - we are not a trained warrior. But we do our job with passion, even if it is very difficult - the brigade we replaced has lost half of your men."

Most days, he added, were spent to carry out "educational" missions about enemy movements. If the "spotters" were discovered themselves, the Russians would use an entire artillery battery to turn them off.

"You have used up two full batteries of Uragans [Truck-Launched Missile Systems Carrying 16 Five-Metre-Long Missiles] to eliminate only two Ukrainians who carry out a drone education," he said. "They have so many rockets, they use them like balls."

The talk is now about the intensification of the Ukrainian counter -offensive in the next month, which announces a advance to recapture the occupied Cherson. While Kiev will hesitate to bomb their own city from outside, they hope for a popular uprising within Cherson. Ukrainian partisans have recently started with insurgent attacks, bombed cafés that are used by Russian troops and murdered Kremlin officials.

On the other hand, the Kremlin could first start its own advance towards Mykolajiw. A British volunteer, which serves on the southern front, told The telegraph: "If we do not make an advance, the Russians will do it - their tanks could now roll over these fields if they wanted."

"If you get the ports of Mykolajiw and Odessa, you can choke Ukraine for submission. You don't have to win a war by completely filling a country."

What happens on the south front is also influenced by the battle further north in Donbass. Some even speculate that the reason why Ukraine fought so hard for Donbass cities like Sewerodonezk is to bind Putin's troops there while taking Cherson back.

Apart from Mariupol 250 miles east - which is largely destroyed - Cherson is the only Ukrainian city under Russian rule. A successful liberation - completely with cheering crowd - would accelerate the moral of the Ukrainians.

Men like Helicopter will be particularly happy, who not only has an invoice with Putin, but also with his Ukrainian compatriots. Some of them believe that the reason why Cherson fell at all was that its population was pro-Russian, a point in which he absolutely wants to prove the opposite.

"We are not on the order of the government here, we are voluntary, Ukrainian patriots," he said. "We are also not child -eating Maniacs, like Putin thinks we are. We are just ordinary, peaceful people who choose our own leaders and live our own lives - without someone else interfering."