The road from the Ukrainian city of Sumy to the Russian border offered only a foretaste of the fighting thirty kilometers away. We passed tanks on transports, armored vehicles, and the occasional olive-green ambulance with flashing lights, rushing the Ukrainian wounded away from the battlefield.

In dusty, half-abandoned villages, stray dogs roamed and some locals still rode Soviet-era bicycles. But most of all, we saw off-road vehicles bearing the white triangle, the mark of the troops involved in Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s Kursk region.

There was almost unanimous support for the first attack on mainland Russia since World War II.

It was just over a week ago that Kiev’s forces – some of the war-torn country’s most battle-hardened – broke through the Russian border south of the small town of Sudzha, spreading out and eventually capturing several hundred square kilometers of land. It was such an unexpected move that some Moscow soldiers were killed while drinking coffee outdoors.

Although this hardly represents a decisive military turning point, the attack on Russia itself has dramatically changed the situation in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and appears to have seriously embarrassed Vladimir Putin.

In recent days, news has come from both sides of the front line that the Ukrainian advance is slowing. Volodymyr Syrsky, commander in chief of the Ukrainian military, said his soldiers were only extending their advance by one to two miles a day as Russian resistance increased. He added that Ukrainian troops had captured another 100 Russian prisoners of war in addition to the hundreds captured in the early stages of the fighting.

Whatever the military algebra, among the Ukrainians I spoke to who have lived in the shadow of Moscow’s guns since February 2022, there was almost unanimous support for the first attack on the Russian mainland since World War II.

Sveta, who runs a cafe and shop in Pysarivka, about halfway between Sumy and the border, said: “They have been bombing us for two and a half years without thinking. They are still bombing us today. Am I glad that we are now fighting on Russian soil? I am delighted.”

Outside Sveta’s cafe, five Ukrainian soldiers who took part in the first attack were smoking cigarettes and chatting. They said they had been given a few days off to rest. My colleague and I had been turned back at the Ukrainian army checkpoint north of the village – the Ukrainians strictly control access to the combat zone – and took the opportunity to gauge the mood among the Kyiv troops.

I asked Lesha, a fit, muscular 28-year-old from the Zhytomyr region of western Ukraine, what he felt when he crossed the border into Russia for the first time. “I’m at a loss for words,” he said. “It’s almost indescribable, hard to believe. We were digging trenches and laughing.”

Afonya, 35, like Lesha, has been fighting almost non-stop since the war began. As we talked, he reached into his pocket and, grinning, pulled out a Russian fifty-ruble note. He wrote the words “Victory for Ukraine” on it and gave it to me. Then the Ukrainian soldiers started showing us Russian patches and badges and other war trophies.

A few hundred meters away, the cheering was less. In the early hours of the morning, a Russian bomber had dropped a KAB – a glide bomb – and severely damaged four houses. Judging by the twisted metal and broken axle that were still lying on the edge of the precipice, the bomb had also hit a Ukrainian military vehicle. There would almost certainly have been casualties.

Just twenty meters from the bomb site, 66-year-old Haluna, her 38-year-old daughter Svetlana and her 18-year-old granddaughter Taya were sleeping in the front rooms of their house. The bomb had shredded the trees in their front yard and ripped apart the front windows and parts of the building’s structure. Haluna, Svetlana and Taya were all injured and taken to a hospital in Sumy. They were expected to survive.

When we visited the scene, Oleksandr, Haluna’s son, and her daughter-in-law Natasha were picking up debris and sweeping up broken glass. “It’s an absolute miracle they’re not dead,” said 47-year-old Natasha. As we spoke, there were several large explosions in the distance and then volleys of anti-aircraft fire. Outside, a work crew continued to repair overhead wires that had been knocked down by the bomb.

I asked Natasha what she thought about the Ukrainian invasion of Russia. Ultimately, her family paid a price. “It’s terrible what happened here,” she said, pointing to the rubble scattered around the living room of the house. “And winter is coming soon. But we had to do this. We can’t just keep fighting on our own land.”

“Who knows?” she said. “Maybe it will even help bring about peace. When the Russians experience the war first hand, they might change their minds.”

Lesha, the muscular soldier in the cafe, wasn’t so sure. I asked him if he thought the invasion could hasten the end of the war and force Moscow to negotiate. “We know they will react,” Lesha said. “In fact, they will try to beat us with everything they have. But it was the right move. We had to do something.”

This article originally appeared on The viewer‘s UK website.