CNN
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As Kyiv’s armed forces advance further into Russia after their surprise incursion last week, Ukrainians living near the border are watching the incident with mixed feelings: a sense of justice coupled with fear of what might happen next.

“This is the consequence of the (Russian) invasion of our country,” Hanna Fedorkovska told CNN at an evacuation center in Sumy, a city south of the border.

“We did not enter their territory on our own initiative, but because they entered our home and took away our peaceful life. Now they have to deal with it. I hope it was not in vain and that we will get peace.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Kyiv’s forces were advancing further into Russia after claiming hundreds of square kilometers of Russian territory. Kyiv said its troops had expanded a “buffer zone” inside Russia designed to provide better protection for communities in northern Ukraine.

Fedorkovska, 21, arrived at the evacuation center with her 72-year-old grandmother, heartbroken after leaving her husband and the home they had lived in for 52 years.

Ukrainian truck apparently transports blindfolded Russian soldiers

The two women were among hundreds of Ukrainians evacuated from border areas in recent days. Fedorkovska, a student, said her 85-year-old grandfather insisted on staying behind, telling her: “You save your grandmother and I will guard what is ours.”

The surprise counteroffensive gave the Ukrainian military a much-needed boost, but it also raised concerns among some Ukrainians, including Fedorkovska and her grandmother, about what will happen if Russia masses enough troops in the region to repel the offensive.

“I wish our guys good luck, because if they cannot hold the (Russian) territories they have now captured, I think there will be a lot of trouble in the Sumy region. This will be the second Mariupol, I think,” Sergei Zemlyakov, a former soldier who fought in the eastern Donbass region in 2014 and 2015, told CNN at the evacuation center.

Mariupol in the Donetsk region fell under Russian control in 2022 after months of siege and bombing, thousands of reported deaths and stories of horror and famine.

Nila Buhaiova, who works in the social protection department of the Sumy regional administration, said hundreds of people have come through the doors of the center in recent days.

“The evacuation intensified last week… when the shelling of Sumy district began, people could no longer stay and left. On Friday there were 270 people, on Saturday 382 and on Sunday 250,” she said.

Those numbers are dwarfed by evacuations on the Russian side of the border. Local authorities in the Kursk region said evacuation orders had been issued for around 180,000 people there, and thousands more had been evacuated from neighboring Russian regions.

But many Ukrainians find it difficult to feel compassion for their neighbors.

Fedorkovska’s grandparents remained in their home in Myropillya after the war broke out in 2022, even though the village is surrounded on three sides by Russia’s Kursk region and has been subjected to frequent attacks since Moscow’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine.

But since Ukraine’s surprise invasion, the area has become too dangerous.

“After the Kursk operation began, the artillery and mortar attacks stopped because our guys drove them away from the border. But the attacks with guided bombs and aircraft have increased. Now they can’t reach us with artillery, so they shoot from the plane,” Fedorkovska said, explaining why her grandmother finally decided to evacuate.

“We want people to understand what it’s like to live under constant bombardment. To live in a place where you’ve lived your whole life, where you’ve spent your whole life, where you’ve raised your children, gone to school… and to be forced to leave the place and move somewhere else because it’s now under constant bombardment.”

Olena Lozko is an accountant from the Ukrainian village of Velyka Rybytsia, about four kilometers from the Russian border. She too has left the village in recent days as attacks by Moscow’s forces have become increasingly fierce.

“We are very happy that our soldiers are attacking, but we are very scared. We have nowhere to go and we are very scared of these glide bombs,” she said. “The situation is getting worse.”

The Russian FAB-1500 guided bomb is a 1.5-ton weapon, almost half made of high explosives. It is dropped by fighter jets from a distance of 60-70 kilometers, beyond the range of many Ukrainian air defense systems.

People further away from the front hope that giving the Russians a taste of their own medicine could end the conflict.

“It is a signal to Russia that any action can provoke a reaction. You attack – we attack too,” said Borys Lomako, a cafe owner in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which is also near the border with Russia.

He told CNN he believed the counteroffensive would give Kharkiv, a city that has been under constant fire for months, a little more breathing room.

“For me it is life-affirming that we will fight for our border, and we are doing more than just pushing (the Russians) back to the front. You are entering our territory, we are entering yours. Psychologically, this is a change of position in this war,” he said.

Andrii Legin, a 40-year-old resident of the capital Kyiv, said he feared the reaction of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he called a “crazy dictator.”

“Russia can react in any way it can imagine, starting with a completely frantic military response. Or maybe there will be some kind of rethinking among the Russian people because the war has spilled over into Russian territory. Let’s see how the Russians react to that,” he said.

However, he said he was sure of one thing.

“I don’t think it will do any good if we Ukrainians are happy about it,” he said. “But if it is the only way to demand peace, then maybe it will work.”

CNN’s Olga Voitovych and Maria Kostenko contributed reporting.