LYMAN, Ukraine — Tamara Klimashenko stood in what was once her cherished flower garden and pulled out her phone to show photos of the peonies, petunias and chamomiles that once covered this patch of dirt now littered with shrapnel.
Her husband, Anatoly Klimashenko, pointed to where the shells exploded: one near the cabbage patch; another where the strawberries grew; yet another on the garage he built.
Lyman was the site of fierce fighting in May, when Russian forces seized the city, and in the summer. The Russians occupied Lyman until Oct. 1, when they fled a fast-advancing Ukrainian counteroffensive.
But even amid the wreckage of their home — with the walls blown out and wood planks hanging from the ceiling — the Klimashenkos said they feared an even worse fate: another Russian invasion, potentially their third in eight years, as President Vladimir Putin’s self-assigned “main goal” of “liberating all of Donbas” yet again puts their city in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.
“They’re going to bring more destruction,” said Anatoly, 62. “And already there is nothing left to destroy.”
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Like many others here, the Klimashenkos for about six months have slept in an underground storage unit to avoid the shelling, and now subsist on humanitarian assistance brought by Western aid groups.
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