The Silent War in the Donbas: Frontline Accounts of Volunteers Fighting in the Trenches
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A special report by Alexander Rogatkin: "Donbas frontline chords". A silent war in the south-west of Ukraine.
Oleg Veter's carrying a special weapon through the trenches of the 9th regiment: “Good afternoon! Look at what I've got. Veter's here. We're soldiers. Just like in Savur-Mohyla. You return back after a two-day mission. And here's a guitar waiting for you. After some food, the guys are like, 'Go play something, chief.' And and then you play for two hours straight".
The Afghanistan veteran and a participant of the Savur-Mohyla military operation started taking his guitar to the frontline more often than a Kalashnikov.
Oleg Veter: "One can't do without a guitar just as one can't do without a machine gun".
Oleg Veter is well known and loved in the former Soviet republics for his trench truth.
The audience in the trench shelter is small. Some stayed at their firing points. But it's an appreciative audience.
Eduard Davydov, fighter: "We rarely have a chance to rest our souls. Always tense, always shooting. I literally get goosebumps from listening. In the morning you hope to see the evening, in the evening — the next morning".
Donbas frontline chords.
The outskirts of Gorlovka. Our minibus is sneaking along the frontline driving around the craters. The forest in December is treacherously transparent. Someone's shooting an automatic grenade launcher nearby.
- Shall we go or wait?
- Let's fly through.
Roger "fly through".
A diver: “This is our fortified sector that's why they were shooting automatic grenade launchers. They were shooting their grenade launchers trying to force us out because we're holding the road that leads straight to the village.”
The positions of the legendary commander under the codename "The Iron". He's been stuffed with bullets and splitters so many times that you can sell him for scrap metal. Nine battle wounds didn't break him. The trenches didn't make The Iron rust.
The situation here rapidly worsened when the Ukrainian Army violated the Minsk Agreement and traversed the villages of Gladosovo and Travnevoye.
"The Iron": “They appointed elders, just like when fighting the Nazis. Gave them white armbands. They let three people go to the nearby village to buy groceries in the morning. And in the afternoon, the exit is forbidden.”
The Ukrainian Army has set up their positions in the village gardens. The snipers are shooting from the attics, using the villagers as living shields.
An unexpected seizure of the two villages in the neutral Grey zone the Ukrainian patriots from Aidar call "the strategy of a leaping toad". They were jumping on the Maidan and now they're leaping. They leap to the first defenseless village and plunge their yellow-blue flag. Every day, a small peremoga (victory).
Zoya Ivanovna had been living with her daughter in Gladosovo. She came back to her ruined house in the village of Golmovsky. Now, nowhere is safe.
Zoya Ivanovna: My daughter's just come. She's here now.
- So you don't want to go back to Gladosovo?
- We will return if the soldiers leave the village.
Going to Golmovsky, where people work, receive their pension, and buy groceries, is now plain dangerous.
Tatiana, a resident of Gladosovo: Today, people from Gladosovo and Metalist came. Some weird people. And they were shooting.
- The locals?
- Yes, they were shooting the locals.
- Who were trying to escape?
- Those who were trying to escape.
Tatiana will still have to come back to get her things so she's hiding her face under a kerchief:
- People in Travnevoye are hostages. They are scaring, threatening them.
Golmovsky village where some of the villagers left is getting constantly shelled. Windows covered in tape and craters next to the houses. Some houses are in ruins.
People living in these houses are tired of replacing windows. They crafted these simple shields that protect them from splitters made from cross-ties and sandbags. But as you can see, the bags are already torn.
- Anyone alive here?
Alexandra Garkova, Golmovsky resident: "It protects the windows from the splitters. They've got kids there. Three-four-year-old schoolchildren."
The so-called truce when everyone's sitting in trenches was made for snipers. It's a new business in Ukraine. All sorts of people come to Donbas for a separatist safari. Politicians, foreign tourists, and even journalists. At least that's what Alena Belozerskaya from the Right Sector called herself.
A fighter: "One of our men died here. A journalist from Ukraine got him. She was even on TV.A journalist from the girl squad. She's sitting there near the enclosure, an instructor next to her. And he says: 'Here he comes, go girl!' She’s like: “I see him, here he comes. He's there, look! Die, scum!” And then, we watched the video and it was our man. We saw how and where she shot him".
The Donetsk snipers rarely miss their target as well. This footage was filmed by the DNR-fighters. The soldier didn't even have a chance to shoot his launcher: “I see him. Again! Again! Again! It's a simple rifle, not an assault one. Got him. Nice one!”
The miners quickly learned how to handle a "whip." That's what they call an SVD for the sound it makes.
The fighter: Being a miner helped me quickly adapt. Our beat-up hands can endure a lot. In time, everything regenerates. The human body adapts to changes and works appropriately. We didn't want to fight, we were made to.
Hold the rifle steady. Always hold your rifle steady and level only once, just once. Wiggling your rifle leads to this. That's what you get shooting from 100 meters. At the standard distance of 200-300 meters, you'll miss the target by a meter and half.”
The fighter thought, was left-handed and was aiming through the optic sight with his left eye. But the enemy sniper was quicker.
Maxim, a fighter: The bullet came from there pierced the skull without touching the brain. The doctors said I have a concrete brain so the bullet just ricocheted.
The fighter thought: "an eye for an eye". And after being released from the hospital, learned to aim with his right eye. The single one.
Maxim: I was left-handed when I lost my eye. Now I'm right-handed since I don't have to squint. That's how I became a sniper.
Kominternovo. Another village at the frontline. In the very south of the DNR.
We run from one cover to another. Fins on the asphalt. The local shop is almost in ruins. The sign has just been torn off by an explosion.
The vendor Victoria says that after three years, the locals have resigned themselves to their fate and don't even hide anymore.
Victoria, Kominternovo resident: "You know, sometimes I don't even want to hide from the shooting. You just sit there and wait, hoping they won't get you. Sometimes, snipers shoot up the village. You're taking out the trash and bullets whish right past you. At least not at you".
Victoria is almost not afraid anymore. Only angry and hateful. She's recently buried her 19-year-old daughter killed by a Ukrainian shell.
Victoria: I would have torn them apart especially the one that killed my kid. I still can't comprehend why they needed to kill my kid. Still can't. Now she's dead.
There's a kindergarten on the outskirts of Kominternovo. Two Ukrainian tanks have been there since they broke down unable to crush the seesaw with their tracks.
Georgy Slesaryevsky, battalion commander: "We came in 2015, and we've been here ever since, waiting for the new tanks".
The commander's been fighting for over three years. He's originally from Slavinsk. It was his idea to run a train through the Ukrainian positions and weld its wheels to the rails blocking the crossing.
Georgy Slesaryevsky: The train's running at the full speed it's raining, all their vehicles are there. We're blowing the horn, "Donba-a-a-as!" I saw how their snipers were running around, fleeing from their vehicles like cockroaches.
The commander noted that their enemies carefully prepare before an attack, searching for breaches in their frontline defenses.
Andrey Oprishchenko, regiment commander: "They were previously acting like the Ukrainian Army, lousy and inept. Now, they're fighting like they've been trained by NATO. They even have the same uniform. Six infiltrator groups blew themselves up on our minefields. They became bolder. An unprepared soldier won't go into the depth of a hostile position. It means they were preparing. They've got advanced weapons and firing techniques."
Here are the consequences of a breakthrough in the LNR town Frunze. As soon as the first snow covered the road the Ukrainian infiltrators crossed the frontline. Either they didn't listen to their instructors or the LNR-ones happened to be better. The infiltrators got instantly pumped with bullets.
A phone chat:
- It's better to check than assume.
- Hello?
- Well, your comrade bites the dust.
- Who's speaking?
- Lieutenant colonel Marochka.
- You mean Sanya's dead?
- Yeah, sorry about that.
- Yes, I'm listening. Is it Sanya's phone? What do you want?
- Are you his mother?
- Yes, I am his mother. I'm sorry, but your son's dead. …
- I see. Will you bring him back?
- Look, we'll evacuate the bodies and we're hoping that soon we'll hand over your son's body to the Ukrainian side.
Three dead, one injured. He instantly surrendered and received medical help.
A medical attendant: I'm going in, you go next, OK? Sit right here. No need to dust off, sit here, please. That's it, sit down. Look to the side, like this. Don't be afraid, it's not going to hurt.
The questioning: Didn't your command give you any orders regarding the School Truce?
- I don't remember.
The injured will be returned to his comrades during the nearest prisoner swap. The bodies were handed over to the Ukrainian side through the OSCE mission.
The "Black Tulip" truck, or simply "Cargo-200". Is frequently seen in Donbas. Working in the DNR, they've handed over several hundred bodies of the so-called ATO-soldiers.
Alexander Guz, volunteer: "I'd say over 600 people. -700 already. In Brest, I heard the number of missing is 800... Maybe 850. The MIAs are basically dead. The majority of them are dead. We used to find entirely charred bodies in the wreckage".
Hard and horrible work. The former search-and-rescue volunteers from Krivoy Rog and Dnepropetrovsk are now working in the Black Tulip. Several years ago, they used to dig out the remains of the Soviet soldiers that died in 1943. Still sometimes, searching for the dead UAF soldiers they find their grandfathers instead.
Alexander Guz, volunteer: "Some parallels can be drawn: The way people are treated, the way soldiers are treated, their lives. During WWII there were a lot of MIA cases. We still sometimes find their bodies at the battlefields”.
The Tulips used to find dead militiamen in the neutral zone as well. In the crossfire, one can't tell for sure who's wandering around the battlefield.
Alexander Guz, volunteer: We only managed to arrive there, change a tire slashed by a splitter, and load a single militiaman into the truck. Then, we got pinned to the ground. We had to lie down for more than two hours. It gets busy in the neutral zone. The DNR started it, the UAF joined them shortly. In all that mess, it was hard to tell who's right and who's wrong.
The Tulips admit, their hard work is treated with respect in Donbas.
Alexander Guz, volunteer: We're treated fine both by the DNR and the UAF because nobody fights the dead warriors. I think handing over the dead soldiers to their sides is a right thing to do. His comrades can pay him their last respects.
The everlasting wound of Donbas has been bleeding for four years.
A wounded fighter: Yesterday, I got this three-year-old splitter removed. It pierced my ribcage here and remained in my chest.
One can extract a splitter from their chest. A troubled heart will never be healed.
Vladimir Podtynny: He was already dead when they shot half of his head off with an SVD. They're afraid of us, even the dead ones. The next week, they didn't allow us to evacuate the bodies. Our guys were lying there mutilated.
These are the most painful memories for the children's karate coach from Lutugino. In the summer of 2014, he joined the militia with his two sons. They got ambushed. The heavily injured elder son Vladimir, together with a friend tried to go for a fake breakthrough to draw fire on themselves. They had only one sniper rifle round for the two of them. Vladimir used to carry it around his neck.
Vladimir Podtynny, Donbas Karate Union: "They got shot with an SVD. There was a helicopter and some heavy vehicles, all firing at them. They drew fire and died in the car".
The group figured out the position of the main enemy forces and escaped using a different route.
Vladimir Podtynny: We owe him our lives. It feels wrong to keep on living when your child is dead.
After freeing Lutugino, Podtynny returned to his sports club to train young karate fighters.
Vladimir Podtynny: OK, up! Osu! Our students have become champions of Russia, used to be champions of Ukraine, received medals at European and World championships. Due to certain reasons, we're currently not competing at the European level. But someday we'll go there, or they'll come to us.
The only thing that reminds of the war in the Edelweiss Club is the bomb shelter sign.
Nobody in the Donbas trenches believes it will end in peace. Everybody dreams about peace but is ready to respond to any actions by the Kiev government. Drills and firing practices are conducted constantly. The soldiers modify their weapons any way they know and can.
A soldier: An old proverb says: Need makes the old wife trot. It's simple: use a cap instead of the muzzle brake. The round must fit in.
- What kind of round?
- This one? A ZU — a 29 mm anti-aircraft round.
- The UAF have a lot of these rounds in their warehouses. They are now loaded into DIY grenade launchers.
- We don't have enough appropriate ammo. And these rounds are aplenty. A lot of trophy ones too. It's almost impossible to find the VOG-25 ammo here. That's why we have to improvise. You insert a blank cartridge close the breech mechanism and insert the main round. And then, you shoot your target.
9th regiment is stationed on the Azov coast. There are many Russian volunteers here. The distance between the border and the frontline is just 30 km.
- They say that Russia is the aggressor, that Russia started this civil war. What do you think about that as a Russian?
Vyacheslav Kotsenko, volunteer: The people who were throwing Molotov cocktails on the Maidan started this war. They started it. I'm partly Ukrainian myself. It's my land, the land of my ancestors. Why are they accusing Russia? Our people are here. We came to protect them.
- Idea-driven volunteers are the only ones that are still fighting. Mercenaries and ones escaping some problems, they eventually dropped out.
Svetlana Zima, spotter: I couldn't sleep. I was waking up at the same time during several months Something was troubling me. I was waking up gasping for air my heart pounding like crazy. And only when I came to the DNR territory, I could sleep well and my heart calmed down. I feel at home here. It's like my second home.
- A dangerous home, one might not come back. What does your family think of your being here?
- Well, at first, they didn't know I was here. I quietly packed my things and left. They were searching for me. Two weeks later, I called home told my mom I was in the DNR, in Donbas.
- The former retail vendor from a town on the Volga is now serving as a spotter. Crossing the frontline for Zima is a common thing, like going to buy groceries.
- I taught them not to treat me as a girl. At first, they were like: "Let us carry your body armor, let us help you, here's the tastiest cookie, here's the last candy we have." I'm trying to keep up with them as much as I can. I also dig trenches, sometimes cook, have night shifts just like they do. All the same things boys do.
Eduard came from Kiev. He used to sell souvenirs at the Andriyivskyy Descent by the church. The Maidan destroyed his small business as well as his big country.
Eduard Davydov, fighter: I used to live on Grushevsky Street, 2 km from there. I witnessed the Maidan, saw Poles there who were swearing they were our friends. I sometimes came there to watch you know, the herd instinct to watch what was happening.
- Why did you leave?
- I decided to come here. They wanted to topple the government and they succeeded. I didn't want to live there with a new government. Besides, they started attacking Donetsk. You know they said they were the peacemakers and then started shelling people's houses.
Svetlana Zima, spotter: The windmills. 110 meters above the ground in the pitch-black darkness. Your ladder is shaking like it's about to fall off. And you're wearing a heavy body armor. And carrying your weapon. It's hard. And you have to climb 100 meters. And then you sit there for several days and watch. I was ready to die here. I was ready to be injured or crippled. I clearly understood and imagined that.
- One can also get captured.
- That's the scariest option. I wouldn't want to get captured. That's why I'm always carrying a grenade. Just in case.