Almost all civilians have fled Lukianivka. The tank battle destroyed at least half a dozen houses
\n Kyiv
\nThe battle for Kyiv is being fought in villages like Lukianivka, where burned-out Russian tanks and the charred, partially-buried corpse of a Russian soldier lie near a destroyed church.
\nUkrainian soldiers boast of how their outnumbered army had taken on Moscow\u2019s military might and recaptured the tiny farming hamlet 70 kilometres (40 miles) east of the capital a week ago.
\nA trail of destruction bears testament to the ferocity of the fight — destroyed houses and cars, and the reduction of the wooden 19th century Church of the Ascension to a pile of wreckage.
\n\u201cWar happened, what can I say. Shooting, there was so much fire, God forbid,\u201d said resident Andrii Semeniak, 37, as he cycled through the deserted town in the rain with his wife Nadia.
\nThey are among the only residents left in the village, which is now pockmarked with bullet holes and shrapnel marks.
\n\u201cOf course it was scary. Now it\u2019s better, there is no shelling anymore, and the Russians were pushed away,\u201d added Nadia Semeniak, 28.
\nThe village deep in the fields is a world away from the gold church domes and now-closed designer shops of Kyiv, but places like this are where Ukraine says it is turning the tide against Russia.
\nMoscow\u2019s bid to encircle Kyiv has stalled, with the Ukrainian government claiming it has recaptured a series of towns and villages and Russia saying it will scale back attacks around the capital.
\n\u2018Made the shot\u2019
\nIn Lukianivka, discarded green Russian military coats, rations and sweets lie on the damp ground, apparently as soldiers fled the village they had occupied for a month.
\nThe two tanks had their turrets blown clean off by the force of the blasts that hit them, while the wreckage is scorched orange and black, AFP reporters who visited the village said.
\nOne tank bears the \u2018O\u2019 marking of Russian forces that crossed from Belarus on February 24 as Russia invaded its ex-Soviet neighbour.
\nRight next to it, untouched by the fighting, is a statue of a rifle-bearing man commemorating the Soviet Union\u2019s dead from World War II.
\nThe other tank lies abandoned in a muddy field. A few metres away, Ukrainian soldiers have thrown earth over the charred body of a Russian soldier but parts of the corpse remain visible.
\n\u201cI talked to our tank man from our battalion who hit that tank\u201d after the battle on March 24, says Ivan, a Ukrainian serviceman accompanying an army chaplain to visit the village.
\n\u201cHe saw the enemy tank in the viewfinder, he said he got scared but made the shot. When the smoke cleared he saw that the Russian tank was backing off,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cHe made another shot and yet another shot but the third one was unnecessary, because the turret was already blown off.\u201d
\nA gutted armoured personnel carrier lies further down the road, near a burned-out civilian van.
\nUkrainian forces towed away five other vehicles — three tanks and two armoured personnel carriers — that Russian soldiers abandoned as they fled, the soldiers said.
\n\u2018I feel pain\u2019
\nBut Lukianivka\u2019s liberation has come at a price.
\nAlmost all civilians have fled. The tank battle destroyed at least half a dozen houses, with one smart, peach-coloured house left as just an empty shell.
\n\u201cSo this is \u2018demilitarisation and denazification\u2019,\u201d said Vitali, another Ukrainian soldier, mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s justifications for the invasion.
\nThe Church of the Ascension, which was built in 1879 and survived being closed for several years closed under the Bolsheviks, is no more.
\nIts once-light-blue clapperboards, gold trimming and doors painted with pictures of saints lie beneath charred rubble.
\nThe destruction of the church is inexplicable to Ukrainian army chaplain Nazarii Hahaliuk, given that Ukraine and Russia both share the Orthodox Christian faith.
\nHe said he did \u201cnot believe as a person or a priest\u201d in Russia\u2019s pledge to ease attacks on Kyiv.
\n\u201cI feel pain, I feel tragedy, I feel spiritual decline like that of a person who has been killed,\u201d he said as he surveyed the ruins of the church.
\n\u201cWhen enemies come and start destroying our villages, cities, buildings, and people, we have to protect them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Almost all civilians have fled Lukianivka. The tank battle destroyed at least half a dozen houses Kyiv The battle for Kyiv is being fought in villages like Lukianivka, where burned-out Russian tanks and the charred, partially-buried corpse of a Russian soldier lie near a destroyed church. Ukrainian soldiers boast of how their outnumbered army had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4022,2898,5529,5530,4905],"class_list":{"0":"post-252374","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-battle","9":"tag-church","10":"tag-destroyed-tanks","11":"tag-frontline","12":"tag-kyiv"},"yoast_head":"\n