^{Debaltseve. Evgeny Feldman / Novaya Gazeta}

— Boys, which country do I live in now — in Ukraine or in DPRia? — an elderly woman asks and suddenly stumbles. — Are you one of these, or … those?

Something impressively blows somewhere behind the hills, and so - under an incessant accompaniment of close explosions of some significant ammunition - we learn that granny Galya is from the Yasinovata village, she has children living there, but she is unable to reach them on the phone to learn whether they are alive for a week already – the communication is lousy. Our phone still has a network connection - we get at them: and we all learn that they are alive.

— I cannot leave here — I pity the dog and the hens, also I do not want to join the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). And even if I wanted to, I don’t know whether they let me in or not, and some pass cards are necessary … If you could take the dog with you then I would take it upon myself. —The old sheep-dog with wise sad eyes takes an attentive and full of hope closer look at the strangers and eventually brings a stick. — My dog is very smart. Nevertheless, I do not let it inside my house at night; just in case some projectile hits the house and kills me I do not want the dog to eat my body afterwards.

Here is Veseloe village, near the deserted Konstantinovka-Donetsk highway (the nearest checkpoint of the Ukrainian army is far behind), - so-called “gray zone”, on its country roads you may run across just anyone. That is why a man, who was standing near granny Galya, immediately disappeared after he had seen the approaching car. However, there is no other way to get to Avdeevka, to the front line.

The closer to the city, the more convincingly the disgusting symphony of war sounds - one can distinguish, where the salvo fire was from and what kind of fire it was: a single howitzer shot or a barrage. The sockdolager of Avdiivka Coke Plant impends from around the corner. It regularly takes hits too, but the plant is belching smoke - tries to operate, and the female voice out of a loudspeaker asks some person to report somewhere. People hold on to their peaceful way of life to the utmost, unable to realize that the war really happens to them. That is why in the mornings they limp along to the plant checkpoint, to their workplaces, at which they sometimes are buried beneath the projectiles — there was a diesel locomotive driver funeral not long ago.

On Avdeevka's northern suburbs located at just 6 kilometers distance from Donetsk, life still glimmers: some shops are open for business, people ride bicycles and even the public transport runs. But the center of the city that once had a 40 thousand population is destroyed; high-rise blocks of flats stand empty exposing the disgusting holes in the walls caused by numerous direct hits. The southern suburbs are on the front line and if one gets on the last floor of any high-rise block of flats, it is possible to get a sight of the remains of Donetsk airport control towers.

Here are four cars and the minibus rushing out of the city at a high speed. It is not clear whether they are going to do a breakthrough or something else. We ring up our contacts - no breakthrough, presently there are no changes on the front line, and it is just because nobody drives this road in a different way - Chapayev Street is exposed to fire. There are ruins of houses along the street edges, and tree branches freshly cut by splinters are on the asphalt.

War tactics in this sector of the front line is as follows: two armies entrenched at the distance of 700 meters from each other and fire out, without ceasing, from all the artillery systems available. The Ukrainian army wages war with less variety; it is easily determined by the sound of salvos by revealing the location and type of weapon firing. Those whom are usually regarded the separatists the used weapon range is wider. Namely such: 82-millimeter gauge Vasilek (Cornflower) mortars, 120-millimeter mortars, T-72 and T-64 tanks, self-propelled artillery systems (of Gvozdika and Nona type), D-30 howitzers and multiple rocket launchers (Grad, Uragan, there are rumors of “buratino” rocket launchers just of fire-throwing type).

Without ceasing literally means the artillery fire duel goes on unceasingly, with rare half-hour breaks for breakfast, lunch and supper, which are sometimes made because of weather conditions (strong wind, for example). Hardly the Grad-fired projectiles (which fire unguided missiles with a damage area of one square kilometer and more, a single barrage can consist of 16 or 36 missiles, depending on the version - simply put these pieces of artillery are Katyushas multiple rocket launchers. Recall the footages from the movies about the Great Patriotic War, which showed the enemy fleeing in panic ) hammered away somewhere at the distance of four blocks from us, the self-propelled howitzers fired in response - from beyond of the city area, by the way. No, it happens sometimes for some silly commander from the Ukrainian army to deploy the battery within the boundaries of a settlement, but then his own comrades deal with him. That is why there is no tactical reason for razing the city to the ground. However, this has been happening just so Avdeevka, for example, for nearly a month - from January 8.

I will say this: no one will ever be able to convince a person familiar with modern military equipment, of all these spewing death devices possible use by the volunteers only, even by ones once served in the army. It is simply impossible. If, for example to fire a volley from even the simplest mortars, requires not only a competent gunnery spotter , but also the persons who, having the special firing tables, calculate the aiming corrections, such as for the air temperature and charge temperature, humidity, wind and terrain. Times when the artillerymen fired over open sights, looking through the gun barrel instead of aiming sights gone. Now the craft is a complicated thing that can be mastered by a layman far from within the month. And that is why I, who saw with his own eyes this whole artillery rampage, will never believe in any fighting self-educated volunteers.

 

…If Donetsk airport is compared in Ukraine with the Brest fortress, then there is its “Pavlov house”, which has maintained a defense here for 9 months already. The house stands on the very front line – there is an approximately eight hundred meters distance to the positions of the separatists. Actually, there I decided to stop for the night.

There was no unbroken window pane in the house, the marks of direct shell hits everywhere, bags with sand dumped at the entrance halls, twisted water pipes, and terrible cold. The company command with Psycho (nom-de-guerre) in charge made its quarters there. They are attached to motor-rifle battalion number 20 of brigade 93 of Ukraine armed forces. The soldiers sleep, when not on checkpoints, here - in the apartments of some elite house which, were bought by some people who happily took out mortgages to buy them and who lived there once, who affectionately did makeovers and purchased themselves small pleasures such as shower booths, which are now useless.

If one enters the house entrance halls and looks at the flat doors, here and there one can see tables with a “There are people living here” writing. Now, after January 8, people do not live here anymore. And, as though in reply to the question "Why?", the floor shook, the window panes leftovers jingled - the tank shell hit the next entrance hall or a shop located nearby, I do not know for sure because I’m not eager to get in to the field of fire. The next high-rise block of flats born the marks of direct hits too: three-four times the building was hit for sure, but I did not walk around the building to count the exact marks number, again because of the field of fire. When, at the beginning of January, the massed shelling started, the locals were laying the civilian corpses near the substation in the yard - soldiers say that there were thirteen of them. There was no opportunity to take the corpses away at once.

As for the tank, which "greeted" me, it has already become a weather phenomenon here. The tank is parked in a caponier at battle positions of separatists, in some kilometer distance from here, and every morning at about 9 am it gets out to make about six shots along the perimeter, sometimes the tank gets out in the noon, like now.

An ambulance car of a “loaf” type rushes nearby, there is a wounded fighter carried on the stretchers, whose hand overhung powerlessly and is being dragged on the asphalt, the carriers carefully lift his hand, which means there is a chance the fighter is not dead (KIA), but an injured one.

Psycho, the company commander, brings me to the headquarters, which is an apartment, where there is still a kitchen (a can with a gurgling rassolnik is on the heatplate), there are a potbelly stove, folding beds inside, mattresses on the floor, and windows are boarded up. The company commanded by Psycho has been staying here for already a month (previously the company was quartered at no less "hot" Peski and Marinka) and no one knows when the force rotation is to happen. On the walls, there are paper orthodox icons and many children drawings: there is no war on them, only peaceful landscapes and joyful people walking in the park. In the drawings there are children clumsy handwriting with mistakes containing the love messages to the fighting soldiers, wishes for them to survive, come back home and to start doing what they wanted to. Children constantly send messages to the front line, as well as their volunteer parents who collect everything for the front line forces, from clothes and food to military equipage. 

I have not met any eighteen-year-old boys in the fighting Ukrainian army. The youngest, Kiruha (Kirill), is 22, he dropped out of the university, returned from Russia and went to war. Now he is sitting on a folding bed, entertains himself by playing some action game on a smartphone, and monotonously tells me without taking his eyes off the screen: «Well, yes there is a shooting, well, I got used to it, well, war is war He does not even react to the perpetual explosions that accompany our conversation, and should he it would be necessary to move about every five minutes. "He had a hard time, maybe his mind is already pushed to the limit" - tell his senior colleagues me in whisper.

The battalion was formed in Dnepropetrovsk. It is staffed mostly of adult men of thirty and even fifty years of age, some of them already have grandsons. Very quiet, prudent people who ask me, a Moscow journalist who by some obscure reason chanced to emerge here, more questions, than I ask them.

— Do the Russians really trust what they watch on their TV? Why do they support it all? No, explain me, why the Slavs are killing each other, and Russians are merry about it? Are there many of those who do not want this war?

I have no answers to these questions, which stung in my head for a year. Therefore, the soldiers answer themselves. Sascha, the man of more than fifty years of age, who have been working at a plant somewhere in Siberia for a long time, tells:

—  My senior brother lives in Tomsk, has two higher education diplomas, he is a former military officer, we celebrated the New Year in 2013 with him in Dnepr (Dnepropetrovsk), and as of now he had a spat with me, with mother, does not call us and says that our fighting forces comprise of fascists and NATO men. Brother, I tell him, what fascists are you talking about?  Am I a fascist? What NATO? Come here and look for yourself, — I am at war, my neighbors are at war … And he goes on hook.

— And my brother serves in the Russian army, he is an officer, there is one year before he is to retire. He calls me and tells: “Forgive me, I’m being redeployed to Rostov, I cannot refuse: otherwise I will get neither the retirement pay, nor the apartments. So, we may see each other soon” — “Through an aiming sight” — the intelligently looking person going to the kitchen engages into the conversation.

Moreover, nobody among those whom I spoke to considers the Russians enemies, because many of them are half and even completely Russian, but everyone asks the same: why everything turned out so and when it will end.

— The chief of police came to me, — tells Psycho, when finishing the third cigarette in 10 minutes, — and tells: “Some strange ammunition went off with a bang, I arrived at the sight - there was no crater, and the trees stood without branches and there were dents on the houses”. So I tell him that it was an explosion of an Uragan shell equipped with cluster munition, well, you know, it splits in the air into independent parts, which in turn blow to splinters.

About Yura, the captain, I was told in Kramatorsk — the story of him and his combat soldiers happily avoiding captivity. He mistakenly called in to a DPR’s checkpoint, while having his chevrons on, which have a fennel sign and a Ukrainian flag depicted. Well, he reported that they were DPR reconnaissance group, and as for the chevrons — there is no other way to get behind the enemy lines — and they were released.

— So who was at that checkpoint, — I ask.

— Chechens, Vostok (East) battalion.

— Are you sure?

— Do you think I’m unable to distinguish a Chechen from a Russian or a Ukrainian? And they had Vostok stripes and a Russian flag.

 

…In the evening, we went to a sauna. Local entrepreneur brothers, to whom the sauna belongs, did not leave the city, and everything they had at their disposal they provided to the military forces: soldiers are washed, fed, and get drinks free of charge. The floor shakes — something blew up nearby.

— It is a self-propelled gun. And that was a mine, — Sascha comments.

— Are you not scared?

— If it starts falling down from the ceiling, then it is time to be afraid of, then we will leave.

TV is broadcasting a parallel life: Ukrainian Children voice program. Joyful and talented participants … The girl from Donetsk is given a standing greeting. And the question takes a shape in my head: how many such girls will not make it to Kiev from Semenovka, Slavyansk, Debaltsevo, Donetsk, Lugansk, Schaste, Uglegorsk? To list the names of all the completely or partially destroyed settlements makes no sense – one simply needs to open the map of Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

— I perceived the event on Maidan with no emotions, somehow I didn’t give a damn, - tells the soldier of nearly fifty years old, who did not wish to introduce himself. - But when it all started to happen here, I went to a military registration and enlistment office. They told me: “Go away, old man”. And I tell them: ”Go away yourself”. I pity the young boys. There was Maxim, who served in our division, a big-hearted man, about 25 years old. Our unit was moved from the front line then and sent to Mariupol to have a rest. So we are on our way back to the military base, and we pass by the village where Max lives. There we got our Gazelle minibus stuffed with food once – that is how much they love him there. So, we arrived and learnt that Max was gone missing - he was escorting the shells, the vehicle got a direct hit and was torn to pieces. The villagers already received a call, but, thank God, Max was found. He simply got a blast injury, and was having a thorough rest in some house…

That night, after 11 pm, there was no intensive shooting (some single shot in an hour). It started to rain heavily (which is bad for mortars) and the gale (that is bad for all other weapon) started. By the way, if there were the untrained volunteers on the other side of the front line, they would have been gladly firing at will, as they are not familiar with such subtleties.

Suddenly, there is a groan behind the wall, almost a howl, then the sob, and it repeats many times. There are fighting men sleeping there and some person among these forty-year old men, obviously dreamt of what happened to him yesterday, or of what might happen tomorrow.

Exactly at 7 am in the morning Psycho the commander wakes up, calls his son: “Sunshine, are you already awake? Come on, come on - it is time to go to school. Well, you will have a sleep on Sunday. I'm fine. Certainly I will come back, sunshine”.

 

…It is necessary to leave Avdeevka in the morning to leave the highway behind before 12 am - a massive artillery strike is expected. By the way, we visit the battalion headquarters. There stands the fighters’ pride — “hijacked” T-72 tank abandoned by the crew, which fought on separatists’ side. Now it is being put in order.

Greyish, looking like a professor of a higher education institution, commander of a detached tank battalion was a regular officer of the Soviet army. Many colleagues and classmates of him are in Russia.

— There are some we call up and sigh together; some do not answer the phone already. I was not enlisted in the army back right away, the age you know, that’s why at first I joined the Pravy sector (Right sector), then, at last, I was transferred. I want to tell you… A, there nothing I want to tell: I just do not understand all this. Thus, I’m not a fascist.

The tank drives out of a hangar, the vehicle identification numbers on the hull are cut with an angle grinder, but the one on the turret remained (let’s try to find out, where it got here from).

— You know, I am a professional tankman and know well where it was produced and came from …

In the regions of Ukraine at war for some reason, there is a proverbial sign: when the Russian humanitarian escort comes to Donetsk region, one should expect the intensification of shelling.

The Grad rockets hit the ground behind a bald peak, which meant it was time to go. On our way we learn that there are refugees in Protestant church in Slavyansk, who fled from the hottest flash point of two last weeks – Uglegorsk, where there are fights for the Debaltsevo mousetrap, all the efforts of getting surrounded which are unsuccessful.

Two men and a woman tell that there was no evacuation, the city is almost thrown an arc of strangulation on, and the Ukrainian army forces is held at a height point at the city exit. That the fire comes from Gorlovka and Enakiyevo, which are controlled by separatists.

— I ran, ran — from the house to the house, and the Grad shells were falling from all the directions, and I prayed to God and I ran, ran … My God, you saved me, and how many children there are sitting in the cellars…

I think it is enough to play with words. This all is a war, the most severe, being waged without counting the lives of peaceful people in the densely populated territory. The war which while neglected conforms only to its own laws, wait a little bit longer, month or two, and it will be impossible to stop it. And whether we like it or not, directly or indirectly, upfront or elusively, recognizing it or not, approving or cursing - we participate in it. Only, what for?

Kramatorsk — Avdeevka