Reservists of the Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces listen to instructions during military exercises at a training ground outside Kharkiv, Ukraine on December 11, 2021. REUTERS Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy File Photo
KHARKIV, Ukraine, Jan 22 Reuters - Residents in Ukraine's second biggest city Kharkiv said they hoped for the best but would prepare for the worst, as Russia massed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine's borders and diplomatic talks failed to produce a breakthrough.
Kharkiv, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine that is home to tank, aircraft and tractor factories, is 42 km 26 miles from the Russian border. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has identified it as a possible target of a Russian attack.
Russia has denied it plans to attack Ukraine, but it has pressed the West for security guarantees, including a block on Ukraine joining the NATO alliance.
The mayor of Kharkiv, Igor Terekhov, said that the city of 1.4 million will be calm and collected, and he wouldn't allow anyone to take it. Some residents said they would stay and fight, others might move.
Daniella Shatokhina, project manager, said I don't have to stay in one place if anything happens.
I am trying not to think about it. I hope everything will be okay, and I hope for the best. It is better not to panic before time, but to decide as it happens, think on your feet. The situation was compared to 2014 when Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, according to an assistant brand manager, Anya Vergeles.
Nobody thought that this could happen to Crimea. She said she does not want to believe it, but she does not know what will happen next.
In an interview released on Friday, Zelenskiy said that an attack on Kharkiv was feasible, though a spokesman later said the president was laying out a hypothetical scenario.
The top U.S. and Russian diplomats agreed to keep talking to try to solve the crisis, despite the fact that there was no major breakthrough at the talks on Ukraine on Friday. Sales manager Oleksiy Kormylets said he would not leave Kharkiv if anything happened.
If I have to join the city defence, I'll do it, he said.
Anton Sergeev thought Russia may be just sabre-rattling, and recalled an unsuccessful attempt by Russian-backed separatist forces to capture the city in 2014.
They had already been welcomed here, so they learned it's better to stay away. They will go back home in zinc coffins. He said that their mothers would cry.