It has become an unfortunate tradition that the Ukrainian authorities intensify the hostilities in Donbass on the eve of major international meetings, where there are planned discussions on the settlement of the armed conflict in the southeast of Ukraine. The aim of the provocations is to blame Russia for everything and disrupt the negotiations.
The period before the G20 summit was no exception. On Friday, on the day of the beginning of the summit in Hamburg, two simultaneous explosions rocked the center of Lugansk, causing the death of one person and injuring seven more. By the end of the week, Ukrainian security forces intensified shelling. Our war correspondent, Alexander Sladkov, reports from Donbass. At the beginning of this week, French reporter Nicholas Donatier came to the trenches of Donbass. Having arrived in Donetsk, he requested to go to the war zone, and was brought to a DPR army position near Gorlovka, in Zaitsevo.
-Arthur?
-Yes, Arthur.
-I'm Nicholas.
-Nicholas? Nice to meet you.
He is asking what is happening now. All is quiet. We're reinforcing the front. At least here. Foreign reporters often come to the trenches of the DPR. What do they want? They probably want to see that we are some kind of castigators, terrorists. Let them see that we don’t touch anyone, we don’t torture anyone, we don’t kill anyone. We are defending our land. That’s all. They are probably told there that some monsters live here. Regular hard workers stand here on the front line. Hard workers, miners. Almost everyone’s a miner here. The French reporter crossed the front line. He worked in the Ukrainian trenches for two years, embedded with the nationalist Azov battalion. When I was in the Ukrainian army, there was paranoia. They follow you all the time, so it's not easy to be among the soldiers.
Ukrainian soldiers may already be tired and don’t want to fight now. And here are real patriots who want to fight for freedom. And here, it’s more interesting. Here's Roman Gnatyuk, the Frenchman's translator and former Ukrainian reporter. He tried to tell the truth, politicians didn’t like it. So Roman came to the DPR. Here, in general, if you do something wrong, they can forbid you to work. Or deport you. Basically, that's pretty much it. By "something wrong," I mean against the local government. There, it can result in more serious consequences. Like what? You can be beaten, you can go missing, stuff like that. Ukrainian soldiers often come here to the DPR, with weapons, without weapons, they are not even shown to the journalists, it's a common thing. At first, they would come alone. And now, right through border checkpoints, as in, through official border crossings between Russia and Ukraine, people are escaping Ukraine and running for the border. Young guys who don’t want to serve, who understand that all this is meaningless.
Dmitry Bobkov serves in Gorlovka, in the army of the DPR. Before that, he fought in the Ukrainian army against Donbass. Yes, many people want to leave. If you're on the front line, there are a bunch of detachments behind you, it's not so easy to get away from there. What kind of detachments? You're at the front, and there, a kilometer or half a kilometer away, there is another unit. They will surely stop you. They won’t shoot you, will they? -Will they arrest you? -Yes. But they can also shoot you if it’s at night. He left for many reasons: drunkenness in the trenches, shootings, and hatred by the local population. They treat the Ukrainian army like invaders. A guy gave me a lift. You know what he said? "Imagine, I live as if I'm in prison, I'm at home, but in prison!" Many don’t leave their houses, try not to be seen. Many local people were locked in basements, tortured, interrogated.
This week, we have received a video taken by a Ukrainian marine, it was filmed with his phone in his own trenches on the Azov coast, near Kominternovo. It was spring. Undisciplined behavior, low morale, and constant danger. Are they mocking us? Wow! Look what flew in! It’s hot! Look here! -That shrapnel fell near my head! -I can see that! The last video on the seized phone, a farewell to his daughter. Hello, my dear daughter. We don’t always manage to talk on the phone, so I say hi to you this way. I want to say that I really love you and miss you. God willing, I will return from the war, and we will meet again. This marine died while trying to break through the front line. Residents of Kominternovo went through four terrible hours back then. The village was almost captured by the Ukrainian marines. We were at the breakthrough point. Here are the trenches, where they fought at night, right here, they fired at each other. Here, on the spot where you are standing now, lay one.
-A Ukrainian?
-Yes.
And the second one was there. The Ukrainian marine, who was saying goodbye to his daughter, was left on the battlefield by his comrades. We saw the body when it was transported to Donetsk. This story doesn't end there. Pathologists in the DPR were shocked. A substance from the group of phenylalkylamines was found in the blood — amphetamines. And methamphetamines. And methamphetamines. Amphetamines and methamphetamines are synonyms. In the blood of the Ukrainian marines who attacked Kominternovo, they found amphetamines. The settlements of the DPR are sometimes shelled and attacked by drug-using soldiers.
The guys, who brought these bodies, say that it's just scary when you shoot a man, and he doesn’t stop. You can see numerous gunshot wounds, lots of them, but he keeps going. It's a nightmare. There, half the young people take drugs. It wasn't like this before. It was, but not to that extent. Now they cook drugs, all kinds of garbage, obviously. It's very popular there. Very popular. Life in the trenches is difficult. Here, death is close. Here, time passes differently. From shift to shift. They solve their problems during inactivity. During the truce, we use all the time wisely to gain a foothold, to dig trenches. Here, security is measured by the depth of the trench, the stock of ammunition, and the artillery support. Hundreds of meters away, on the other side of the front line, everything is the same. They work, they dig. They shoot. If you rise a little higher... If they notice that work is being done here, they start shelling with a grenade launcher. Such a truce. The main thing is not to stick out of the trenches, to keep your head down, so as not to provoke the Ukrainian military, because they can start shooting. Alexander Sladkov, Pavel Vydrin, Igor Uklein, Andrei Rudenko, Oleg Bondarenko, Vesti News of the Week, Donbass.
