Oleksandr Prikhodko had cause to believe when Ukrainian fire erupted over his head at the Russians in their nearby southern bastion of Kherson.
The vivacious 42-year-old was standing in the smouldering wreckage of the family business he had established on the outskirts of territory that Russia had unjustly claimed as its own.
During their second effort to seize the adjoining Ukrainian riverbank port of Mykolaiv in July, the Russians destroyed his life's work to nothing.
The route between Mykolaiv and Kherson has become one of the war's main axes when the Ukrainians began a rousing counterattack.
In the Kotlyareve settlement of a single plant, Prikhodko grew up next to the road.
The factory was also destroyed by the Russians.
In between loud bangs of incoming rocket fire, Prikhodko stated, "There is great psychological relief when you get word about our accomplishments.
It helps to witness a military vehicle travel out to the front and then safely return, for example, the man added.
"Our soldiers' lives are in their hands. And they must comprehend in some way that we are aware of this."
systematic approach
Early in September, Ukraine launched a counteroffensive across northern territories, and the Russians, who appeared to be in shock, eventually gave up without much of a struggle.
Both parties do not anticipate the same outcome in Kherson, nor do the Kotlyareve people.
A doorway between the commercially significant Sea of Azov and the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin has annexed, is provided by the city and its named area.
With it gone, Vladimir Putin would have almost little to show for a campaign that has made him a pariah and isolated Russia like it was the Soviet Union.
Long-range missiles that Washington agreed to start sending to Ukraine in late May were used to systematically attack Kherson at the outset of the war for that city.
The weapons storage facilities and supply lines that Russia utilised to outfit its soldiers in Kherson were effectively attacked by the Ukrainians.
The plan was to keep the Russians from acquiring new weapons and to confine them to the arsenal they already possessed.
Then they jumped in.
Similar to a rollercoaster
The sounds of battle reverberating across Kotlyareve indicate that Ukraine's strategy is working.
With random salvos of fire that scarcely register with villages hardened by eight months of war, the Russians are replying to the Ukrainian barrages.
Local factory driver Viktor Romanov observed, "They are shooting at us a lot less now."
