Many residents around war-ravaged Kyiv are going back home, but risk of new attacks has authorities worried

From an elevated spot behind the sandbags near his home in northern Ukraine, Andreii Lopata could watch the Russian troops on the other side of the Irpin River and observe as they fired artillery strikes into his community.

He says he counted 240 hits in three weeks, which left the homes in his village splintered and their yards pockmarked with deep holes.

"In 1941, the Germans bombed us from [the same place], my grandmother said," Lopata, 53, told CBC News. "They completely repeated the path of the Nazis — exactly the same fascists as came here in 1941, but [now] they are Russian."

It's only about a 25-minute drive from Lopata's home in Irpin to downtown Kyiv, which is why the Irpin River and the town on its banks were such strategically significant points for Ukraine's military to hold as Russian troops marched on the Ukrainian capital last month.

"I didn't run away, so that my grandchildren wouldn't say, 'Grandfather ran away,'" said Lopata. "I took a weapon." 

A former Ukrainian air force sergeant, Lopata says since he knew how to fire a rifle, he helped out the soldiers from the territorial defence unit guarding the town. He claims he shot and killed at least one Russian soldier who came into his sights.

Lopata was one of the few people who remained in his village during the month of serious fighting. But with Russian forces now banished from the Kyiv region, more people are returning to try to restart their lives.

WATCH | Ukrainians try to rebuilt their communities, as the war moves east:

But they are doing so against the advice of Ukrainian authorities, who are urging those who left to continue to stay away.   

Every indication is that Russia is poised to launch a new, large offensive in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region at any moment, and authorities in Kyiv and the surrounding areas remain on high alert. The offensive could come with renewed air strikes and security threats to the capital and its suburbs, and senior Ukrainian ministers warned Wednesday the capital region isn't ready to have civilians return just yet.

Before the war, Kyiv had a population of almost three million, but most have since fled to safer parts in Western Ukraine or other European countries.

"We will see an offensive action that will include all aspects of [Russia's] military — sea, sky and land," said Emine Dzhepar, Ukraine's deputy minister of foreign affairs, in an interview in her Kyiv headquarters. "There will be missiles, probably both ballistic and Kalibr [cruise] missiles, artillery, shelling, bombings and mines."

Dzhepar believes "our military forces are strong enough" and that "this military operation will define the future of [peace] negotiations."

Only a few minutes down the road from Irpin is Bucha, where war crimes prosecutors have been exhuming a mass grave behind a church. The town's mayor said Tuesday that so far, the bodies of 403 civilians have been discovered. Many, if not most, appear to have been deliberately shot or killed by Russian forces.