But Vira Chernukha, 76 and now the sole resident of a northeastern Ukrainian village bombed and depopulated by Russian invaders, has no intention of ever leaving Dementiivka again. Nowadays, she keeps busy fixing the damage to her yard and tending to a monument to Ukrainian soldiers who died defending the village. When she woke up, she was in a hospital room in Belgorod, a city just over the Russian border. "We travelled via Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to Lviv and then Vinnitsya," she said, referring to two western Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian forces retook much of the country's northeast last year in a lightning counteroffensive that caught Russian troops off guard.

---

Persons: Vira Chernukha, Dementiivka, I'm, I've, Chernukha, Ron Popeski, Tom Balmforth, Peter Graff Organizations: Thomson Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Dementiivka, Kharkiv, Ukrainian, Russian, Belgorod, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Lviv