Trenches and blockades to halt Russian troops: After launching ambush Ukrainian soldiers prepare for attack on Kyiv

They’re expecting attacks on the Ukrainian capital within days.

On Friday, Ukrainian soldiers were gleefully driving abandoned and damaged Russian tanks and other military vehicles in an eastern suburb of Kyiv having ambushed and driven the foreign troops back.

As we arrived there was still much debris scattering the main E95 highway which leads straight from Brovary into the capital centre.

The soldiers were edgy and according to those we spoke to, many of their colleagues were engaged in fierce fighting just east of our position as the Russians appeared to be regrouping and mounting fresh attacks.

But in Brovary, too, the casualties are mostly civilians.

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We were invited into the hospital to see how so many of them are children and we spoke to a teenage girl who was shot in her hand and shoulder after she said Russian troops opened fire on their vehicle which was filled with her family.

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Her father Sergei Lugina was driving and lost part of his hand in the firing as well sustaining injuries to his head.

His daughter Katerina is just 14 and was sitting with her four-year-old brother, grandmother and mother.

“It was all so quick,” she told us. “We were driving down the main road from my grandmother’s and they just started shooting at us.”

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The hospital director, Valentyn Bahniuk, let out a long sigh telling us about the toll on his medics.

“It’s very hard physically and emotionally to see young people being crippled and dying for no reason,” he says.

Entire networks of trenches have been dug in many places and buses and other vehicles have been used to block roads to halt any possible advance of troops.

One of the country’s most famous personalities, the man is popularly known as the ‘Phoenix’ in Ukraine said he expected the first substantial attack on the capital possibly within the next 24 hours but smiled confidently.

Yuri Biriukov is head of Phoenix Wings and has virtual hero status in Ukraine for starting a foundation after the annexation of Crimea and raising millions to support their armed forces.

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“We will fight from every window, from every basement, we have enough anti-tank missile… thanks to our allies from UK and United States,” he told us.

“So they will lose tanks every street, every block, every crossroads.”

:: Alex Crawford’s team in Ukraine are camera operator Jake Britton and producers Chris Cunningham and Jake Jacobs.

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