Ukrainian refugees in Sumy fear Russian advance, shelling

SUMY (Reuters) -Margaryta Husakova, her broken arm secured in a metal orthopedic fixation device, smoked nervously as she sat on the staircase of a refugee shelter in Sumy, a city in northern Ukraine, contemplating what the future holds.

In May, Husakova, 37, a mother of eight, lost her mother, sister, and uncle in a Russian drone attack on a van near the town of Bilopillia, west of Sumy. Nine people died in total and Husakova was among the five wounded.

“A man pulled me out of the bus, emergency services arrived, and I was sitting there on the grass,” she said.

Despite talk of peace, the war is creeping closer to Sumy, a regional capital of 250,000 people, located just 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the border with Russia.

After the bus attack, Husakova and her family fled their native town Bilopillia, now a target of Russian artillery, and sought shelter at a refugee center in Sumy.

“What’s next? We’re sitting here, but if they offer us somewhere else, we’ll go with the children,” she said.

Her father, Vyacheslav, expressed worry about the future.

“I don’t know what’s next … the most important thing for me is to take the children away, because katsapy will come to Sumy too,” he said, using a pejorative term for Russians.

Russia, which controls just under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, has seized over 190 square kilometers (73 square miles) of the Sumy region in less than a month, according to pro-Ukrainian open-source maps.

Russian troops have captured more ground in the past days, advancing to around 20 kilometers from Sumy’s northern suburbs, bringing the city closer to being within the range of long-range artillery and drones.

The number of displaced people arriving in Sumy is increasing, said Kateryna Arisoi, head of Pluriton, a non-governmental organization that operates the shelter for internally displaced people.

“We are seeing the frontline slowly moving toward Sumy,” she said. "So far evacuation has been ordered in more than 200 settlements."

Last week, a Russian rocket attack on Sumy killed three people and injured 28, including three children, while also damaging several buildings.

Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in their attacks, but thousands of civilians have died in the three-year-long conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.

(Reporting by Vitaly Hnidyi; Writing by Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Nia Williams)