Some towns they can never let Putin take.
And this lipsy is one of them.
Destroyed artillery on the streets.
Homes aflame from an air strike.
They can only move at night.
Lights off.
It's a perilous grip they keep.
But lose here.
And Russian artillery
will be in range of Ukraine's
second city, Kharkiv.
You can still smell the smoke here from
an air strike that landed just
in the last hour or so
from this block
from here.
This is life under the drone
with the first reporters
into the heart of the town.
Maybe
our only soldiers left here
on the ground.
The Heartier 13th National Guard
first tackled Russia's new offensive.
Watch.
Let's set the light
to turn the corner on each side.
Do you think they were good enough?
Fortifications here.
Nibble an inch or two to be little or no.
Those initial
Well, those initial
spots.
This is obviously the doorway episode.
A lost knowledge that needs to be told.
Any prophecy news.
So one of us says you can keep it.
Okay. Can you talk to get up?
There were eight airstrikes
just in the last hour.
So we leave soon.
A buzzing noise near us, very close.
And the only way they know
whose drone this is
is if it attacks the much stronger,
you know,
all around Target.
They don't have enough guns
and the Russians have too many drones.
But 92nd Assault
Brigade show us something
that isn't even theirs.
Russian artillery piece
that they captured
in the first year of the war
in the fighting anarchy region.
And now they use
strangely French mortar
rounds to fire from here.
It's just a sign of
how little appropriate ammunition
they have available to them.
I think we will draw
this wire as a protection from drones up
above.
This is a drone with two battery packs,
a long range scout across the basement.
It is not friendly here.
If you can tell it's an attack drone.
Hide.
This seems to be a scout.
So running is better
before it calls in shelling.
Another artillery unit
wants to show us something.
Not even Russian, but Soviets
made in the 1940s.
It can still fire
newer Polish shells in the autumn.
It was 100 a day.
Now it is ten.
Extraordinary to see something here
that's three times
the age of either of these two guys
holding back
a new Russian offensive in 2024.
I say the metal so old
that limits the number of times
around the
that sound warns
another drone is incoming.
And back in the bunker
they show us
the online bought $30 gadget.
That is their best warning mechanism.
The team here embody
Ukraine's exhaustion and resilience.
Older guys wounded infantrymen walk.
Our tour has thrown shrapnel in his arm.
Still.
No, no, no.
I do want
you to know, we just saw
an Orlan Russian drone passing overhead.
So saying better stay inside
on the way back into the city.
We see what fuels this defense.
This was a lakeside resort.
Football, cocktails, a beach.
Extraordinary devastation
in there to collect the bodies
for the National Football League.
This was a locomotive
which really is attempting
to speed to put a truck.
A seven months
pregnant woman was among
the seven dead here.
Another body found later just fragments
in the mulch.
Russia's advance looms over
whatever life persists here,
belching out over homes
the darkest
little salvation.
This may be a drone
being hit,
but they kill too,
when they crash in failure.
Flares breach the enforced blackout.
Moscow is getting nearer again
and there are always
too many blasts before dawn.
Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Kharkiv, Ukraine.