“They defended Yanuk from the Maidan. Now we protect the Maidan from Yanuk "

Petro Poroshenko announced the end of the truce and the beginning of the offensive. Report on the other side

Petro Poroshenko announced the end of the truce and the beginning of the offensive. Report on the other side

Photo: RIA Novosti

A long endless column, the army was walking along the Kharkov-Rostov highway and stretched for several kilometers. Before the raisins, the troops accompanied the traffic cops, dispersing civilian transport, further, after raisins - the police were replaced by paratroopers on UAZs, covered with steel plates, with machine -gun calculation instead of the rear seats. The old Zilov tractors with Saushki on wheeled platforms climbed into the Izyumsky hill and almost stopped when the road went very up, but the drivers gave in gas, and the “zila” crawled further and the “sizes” swayed slightly, and the civilian civilians photographed this long rise of the army on their phones.

The army walked and walked, the whole weekend, and especially on Monday until late at night - on the last day of a truce, the continuation of which almost no one wanted to continue. BTRs, trucks with ammunition, buses with soldiers, old “hurricanes” - were used to the main base of the ATO - 20 km from Slavyansk - were stretched, and Afghanistan, and even the streets of Prague, remembered, remembered, remembered. And without any official statements, it became clear that this thin ten -day world was living the last hours.

The most close to the Slavic "checkpoint" of the army - "fisherman" - the rebels attacked two tanks on Saturday. Two soldiers were killed, two more were injured. But the militants of the DPR moved away, without becoming fixed, they say, arranged reconnaissance in battle - and the army retained this checkpoint. On the same day, the National Guard said that during the ceasefire, the Army of Girkin has grown from one and a half thousand people, they already have about fifty tanks, a deposit system, armored personnel carriers and landing machines. In addition to the Slavic rebels, other groups scattered in the region with their field commanders intensified.

With Father Andrei, we drove towards the "fishhose" early on Monday morning. The military went on a detour of positions - journalists rode after. A young mustachioed with a tanned face was a jain priest in the black Bronnika, who was worn over camouflage, on the baseball cap. Who did not know, thought that he was an officer-either because of a mustache, or because he did not wear weapons. And I thought the same. With a red bandage on his hand, Capellan sat in our press machine: “With God”-he crossed himself.

- What forecasts - the column will reach? I asked him, taking him for the officer.

“How to know,” he said, and his palms closed with force.

- That is how? You probably should know better.

- You are joking.

- Not at all.

- Why are you yourself without body armor? - asked Capellan, still clutching his palms uneasily.

- He is in the trunk.

- It's stupid. Put on it now.

“The priest knows better,” one of the colleagues said.

The car rushed off the hill over the green. Father looked around where the forest belts cut the fields of a non -flowing sunflower yet - sowed them before the war. In camouflage, the priest was completely uncomfortable. Only now I noticed a small cross on his armor.

“I’ve been under the army for ten years,” Father Andrei said willingly. - He was educated in Kyiv - and in the army.

- You work badly, since war.

Capellan smiled.

“By the way, in Russia, in my opinion, with two hundred military priests,” he told me after a pause.

“They work even worse,” said our driver.

“A terrible war,” said the young priest.

“And it’s interesting with you, father.”

- I can pray. But, probably, I can’t give you an interview, you need the permission of the authorities, ”said Capellan.

- And who is your bosses, father?

-Well, at least through the press service.

At the “Dolgenokiy” checkpoint, young sinewy paratroopers in the vests repaired the “armored”. In two cars, they should meet in Raisins and escort the column of trucks to the base. Although during the day the releases of the rebels, they say, almost do not happen - they attack at night from the green. I transplant to the paratroopers. The machine gunner throws a tunic and sits in a calculation chair - turning the barrel back. A gloomy driver crawls out from under the belly of the UAZ-a guy in worn glasses of aviators.

“Come already, boys,” a man with a machine gun shouts from the block. - raped the whole car.

“What did you follow, Comrade Colonel?”

“I follow, damn it, you, Pavlik and your friends.” Let's already on ... from here.

“In general, he is a cop, of course, a colonel,” the driver with glasses told me. - And we have our own commander.

“Well, who will analyze them now,” said the machine gunner. - Some bosses. All sorts of different.

- ... they are all. Our separates beat, and we are silent. What, your mother, a truce.

“You don’t say so better about your mother, Jan,” said the machine gunner, turning. - Why so.

- Do you want to disgrace too? - The driver threw the machine from the sides to the stomach.

“Don't be nervous, Jan.”

- They lived calmly. They didn’t touch anyone ...

- Blow out of here!

- ... And these devils of the Maidan. Now, bitch, we bosses.

- You fell asleep there, or something, Ale!

- ... all to the wall.

- Hey, I tell you!

“Let's go already, Yang!”

Jan pressed the pedal to the floor. Thundering with steel panels, UAZ drove along the highway. Through narrow cracks in the frontal armor, a guide car was visible. The machine gunner in it did not sit like in our “bob”, but stood, turning the barrel in the right forest belt or in the left.

- Do not like the National Guard?

“We don’t love anyone,” Yang answered shortly.

“Does hto love her?” - said the machine gunner. - In our Nikolaev, people were not very for the Maidan at all. Maidan made it so that your Putin is fighting against us.

“Bald devil,” Yang said. - His mother is so. - the machine gunner sighed at the mention of his mother, but said nothing anymore.

- Well, what do the Russians say, people in general? He said. - My family has a bunch of relatives there, friends. But after everything that began, we almost do not communicate.

- And what so?

-Yes, they carry some crap: at first they offered to leave for Russia so that the Bandera, they say, did not cut. Then when the father told them that there were no Bandera in Nikolaev, they said that we ourselves.

“You answer, do you want your wars with us or do not want?” - said Yang.

- Because your Putin is okay. But people, Russians? - added a machine gunner.

- Do they want or do not want?

“The people are against the war,” I lied. - Of course, against.

“I thought so,” said the machine gunner. - ordinary people understand everything.

“So we are still brothers.”

“Well, Yang, Russians, Ukrainians, we cannot with each other,” said the verbose machine gunner.

The driver Yang took out a cigarette and lit a cigarette lighter. The Bobik with a machine gun installation drove up to the next checkpoint.

All weekends and the first days after the resumption of the ATO on the raisins were rumors about the possible attack of the DPR for the city. Rumors about the impending attack on the military base were accompanied by reports of sabotage detachments of rebels mining the railway in the Donetsk and Kharkov regions (three bridges were undermined in a week). On the day when the truce was stopped, they came to lead from Svyatogorsk (the village in the suburbs of Slavyansk, controlled by the military, there was also a 15,000th refugee camp), into which a group of militants allegedly could break through. Later, this information was refuted by the mayor of Svyatogorsk Dziuba.

With all this, the strengthening came to all army checkpoints. At the entrance to Izum from the side of Slavyansk, there are fighters of the internal troops and seconded police officers in the uniform of the British infantrymen. The ammunition is delivered by volunteers - new helmets, body armor, camouflage with a small flag of the kingdom on the left sleeve. Someone, I saw, removes this detail and instead of British crosses yellow-blue stripes appear, but many do not think about it, it would seem, a trifle and go in form as it is. Ukrainian soldiers and officers, disbanded Berkutians and current paratroopers, policemen and National Guard, wear this tiny flag, certainly turning them on the air of Russian television into “NATO mercenaries”.

“That garbage, I will still bother,” says Taras, Lieutenant of the Kyiv police, at the Izyum checkpoint. Next to us, several more young soldiers with very tanned faces and hands are sitting on tires. - Spend for the sake of Kiselev, or what?

- Is it generally convenient in sneakers? - I say.

- Yes, great! Like a person.

In fashionable British uniform, soldiers check the documents entering the city. I want to shoot this beauty - the military in shortened trousers, socks, shoes, black t -shirts and new "Bronniki", but one of the Wesashniks is a rally from Donetsk. It’s better not to take risks.

“All winter we were kept on Bankova,” says, lit up, 22-year-old Sasha from Donetsk. - defended Yanuk from the Maidan. Now we protect the Maidan from Yanuk.

“The orders are not discussing,” Taras said. - We are viisk -boned - how is it Russian? Military -tied?

“Military service,” said Sasha. - And that Russia so blown up?

“We used to always hurt Russia when we flew out,” said Taras. - As out of habit.

“In Russia, too, probably so sick,” said Sasha.

- And now - what?

“Well, how to say,” said Taras, “how is it possible now?”

Despite the proximity of hostilities, raisins itself lives without changes. Hotel employees during the settlement, during the settlement, are advised not to walk at night, but a police station, if that, next to the round-the-clock wine and vodka store. Another round -the -clock service window is one hundred meters, to the left of the bus station. In the center of raisins, roads were not repaired for several years, and grass sprouted grass through paving slabs on the main square. The locals are joking that in the next spring, Izum will have their own football field. But the main change, as the locals say, has already occurred with the city - the optical equipment plant (glasses, photos, videoins, sights) closed in the crisis. The enterprise of the once all -union value completely dangled under Yanukovych. After the closure, the plant was dismantled to the foundation, and many began to go to work in Kharkov. Ukrainian colleagues say that raisins could become the second Slavic if the military had not arrived. Here they rallied for the never -held “Kharkov People’s Republic”, demanded federalization, independence or immediately - joining Russia. But with the beginning of the ATO, the city was scored by Ukrainian flags, peeling fences and stops painted in yellow-blue colors. And the cosmetic effect was strengthened by the military bosses who came to raisins at a press conference. In the afternoon, technology dusts in the city and soldiers walk, but only at night, when neither flags nor generals are visible, it is possible to consider real raisins. Clips of youth gather at the popular club Hollywood, briefly cut guys in slippers lead to dancing girls in short shorts. Inside - the hits of the Russian Radio are being tanned, and on the day of the end of the truce, the host of this discos every twenty minutes puts Oleg Gazmanov’s “officers”. “Current officers, let freedom shine, for Russia, for freedom before the end aa!” - It spreads throughout the center. The round -the -clock window still works, and the building of the police station is guarded by machine gunners.