A double row of concrete pyramids winds its way across undulating farmlands outside the city of Kherson. The pyramids, known as dragon's teeth, are a sign of the new defenses Ukraine is building in the south against an expected Russian offensive.
In a nearby village, residents focused on a more immediate task: collecting donations for building materials.
The people of the Kherson region have been slowly rebuilding their homes and livelihoods since a Ukrainian counter-offensive 18 months ago forced Russian troops out of the area west of the Dnipro River and ended a brutal occupation.
Many have repaired their roofs, windows and doors, but as they begin planting crops and tending their vegetable gardens, they are preparing for another Russian attack.
“Anything is possible,” said Oksana, pausing after weeding the flowerbed in front of her house. Like most people interviewed for this article, she gave only her first name for fear of Russian reprisals. “There is talk of a major attack in May to June. We read that they will take back Kherson.”
Her two sons joined the army after the Russians were expelled, complaining of a shortage of weapons, she said. “It's very difficult,” she said of the situation at the front.
For those who lived through eight months of Russian occupation, the memories have fueled fears that the Russians would crack down harder a second time.
Oksana told how her family had lived under the gunfire of Russian soldiers stationed across the street and how her husband almost died when a grenade explosion wounded him in the neck.
“It was scary,” she said. Her face contorted as she began to cry.
Down the street, a veteran soldier, Oleksandr Kuprych, 63, has a hunting rifle in his closet and said he would use it if the Russians return.
“I will send away the women and children,” he said. “And I'll be here. I have my trench and my rifle.'
In his house he also has the helmet of a Russian soldier damaged by a long blow from an axe.
Mr Kuprych said he killed the soldier with an ax and buried him and his rifle in the tree line above the village. The soldier was one of two who shot at the villagers who were trying to climb a hill to find a mobile signal.
“I was so angry that I put all my strength into that ax stab,” he said.
When Ukrainian soldiers retook the village, he showed them where he had buried the soldier. They took away the body and the gun, but let Mr. Kuprych keep the helmet. The episode was written in a book about Kherson's resistance under the occupation.
Kherson's rural communities are resilient, but highly degraded. Some villages on the front line have been so badly destroyed that only a few families have been able to return to rebuild their homes. Electricity and gas are available again in most places, but in some villages water has to be delivered by truck. Irrigation canals remain destroyed, leaving farms and businesses largely abandoned.
There are few jobs and most families live on benefits. International charities have provided cows to residents and money to buy chickens and seeds.
Some of the largest villages, such as Myrolyubivka, are buzzing with families displaced from frontline communities. Blue tarpaulins are pasted over damaged roofs and the vegetable gardens are neatly maintained.
Yet these villages, less than thirty kilometers from the front line, remain the target of Russian missiles and bombs. Myrolyubivka recently completed a large underground cellar where schoolchildren gather twice a week for lessons and games. But before work on the basement was completed, Russian missiles hit the local hospital, destroying an entire wing and several houses.
“Let them die, those bastards,” Tamara, 71, said of the Russian troops as she pushed her bicycle down the street. “I was tending my garden and the shells were flying back and forth over my head, and it's still boom, boom, all the time.”
In another village, the community leader, Lyubov, endured a litany of devastation from the 2022 fighting. “The school is damaged, the kindergarten is damaged, the culture house is damaged and the hospital is destroyed,” she said. She asked that her surname and the name of the village not be published to avoid further fire from Russian missiles.
The United Nations and international charities provided building materials to residents to repair more than 100 houses in the village, but 50 houses were beyond repair, she said. “We're waiting for money for that,” she said.
Russian shelling is not the only source of hardship. The destruction of the Kakhovka dam Last year, which led to widespread flooding in the Kherson region and the draining of the Kakhovka reservoir, lowered the groundwater level and left some villages with infected or dry wells.
There are hundreds of hectares filled with mines and unexploded ordnance. Fields lie unkempt and white ribbons fluttering from the weed stems warn of mines.
Officials say it will take years to remove the mines, but some farmers say they can't afford to wait. Some have paid private contractors to clear their fields. Others have started sweeping their fields with a metal detector.
“We find anti-tank mines and anti-personnel mines,” said a farmer and mechanic, Oleh, 35, as he leaned under the engine of his tractor. “It's the same every day. Demine and then sow.”
His village was on the front line and is one of the most damaged villages. Only a few families and only ten children live there because there is no school, says his wife Maryna (33).
Beneath the physical destruction lie deep wounds from the occupation.
A destroyed two-story house on the edge of the village of Pravdyne served as a Russian position during the occupation. Russian cigarette packs and a ration pack were strewn across the floor among broken glass and rubble. Behind it lay burnt-out armored vehicles.
Early in the invasion, Russian forces killed six farm guards and a 15-year-old girl who was with them while blowing up the house they were staying in. Researchers exhumed their bodies after the occupation and found two of them. had been shot in the head, according to details released by Kherson regional police. The filing named a man serving in the Russian Marines for his role in the killings.
Many families have men at the front or have lost family members to the war. “Who will be accountable for that?” said Naira, a psychologist whose husband, his niece, was killed in the fighting.
While part of the urban population in southern and eastern Ukraine has Russian roots, the rural population is predominantly Ukrainian. Few villagers worked for the Russian government during the occupation. Some left with the Russian troops. Others were accused of collaboration and jailed by Ukrainian authorities, said a farmer, Viktor Klets, 71.
But divisions in the remaining community manifested in petty jealousies and complaints about the amounts of compensation people were awarded, he said.
There were still Russian sympathizers in the village, but they were keeping quiet for now, Mr. Klets said. There was solidarity among those who survived the occupation together, but others who left and then returned accused them of robbing their homes, he said.
“The war changed people,” said Lena, 45, a neighbor standing next to him. “It made people meaner.”
As for the future, villagers often quote the same proverb. “Life is like a long field,” said Mr. Klets. “Anything can happen along the way.”
Yurii Shyvala contributed reporting from the Kherson region.