Convoy: how and why?

Humanitarian assistance from Russia threatens a neighboring country. Something in this fact drives crazy.

To call a column of white “Kamaz” by escort and send to Ukraine-the idea could only occur to a person who had already seen something like that. It seems to me that the white “KamAZ” is simply impossible to invent, there is not enough white powder. And here, of course, Crimea comes to memory. Russia conquered Crimea at KamAZs. The brand new identical green “kamaz” became the same symbol of the conquest of the peninsula as the notorious green men. Those KAMAZI against the backdrop of decrepit Ukrainian technology were glamorous advertising of Russia. Worked in contrast. White KamAZs became their creative continuation. It is no accident that the Ukrainian security forces I spoke with, claim that he came up with a humanitarian convoy and offered our president Sergey Aksenov, acting Head of Crimea.

I was preparing for a meeting with a column of trucks, I watched the photos, but I was still surprised: a platform the size of a football field, lined with rows of identical cars, in the light of the setting sun. Cars are in a military, even rectangles, nine battalions of thirty-three trucks each. The site for the parking lot is located in the clean field, although we were assured that this is already the territory of the military unit. From the road, the car is visible from only one edge, then the hill closes them. On the highway, where a view of the parking lot opens, passing are slowed down to consider and photograph the equipment.

To invent white “kamaz” is simply impossible, there is not enough white powder.

When we were looking for a camp, I went out and asked the road from a middle -aged, decent look of a man who holds the child’s hand. The man immediately shook his head negatively, but swayed in my direction, as if calling to come closer. Already knowing some features of the Rostov region, I did so. Continuing to twirl his head, my interlocutor whispered where to go. And this did not surprise.

The Rostov region lives surrounded by enemies-well, or at least fulfills some secret mission. In two weeks, I went into it twice from the territory of Ukraine, and in the train fellow travelers immediately recognized non-named, and besides, curious passengers and arranged something like a survey on the border in the operative’s room. After us, the local police were stopped and interviewed twice. Meanwhile, the columns of armored vehicles scurry along the Ukrainian border, and the “contexts”, smugglers familiar to local drivers, can be transported through two hundred dollars through it with fields. However, such a transition is rather a paid service of the border service, these people are almost share with authorized colleagues revenue and information.

The next morning, a taxi began to stop near the camp, in which men sat in the same sand form, smooth shorts and t -shirts. They carried T -shirts more often in their hands. It was Kamazov drivers to stores. "How did you get here?" - every journalists asked. “We are truckers, came on an ad,” the same drivers told them in response. After this procedure, ordinary nods were replaced by: we - as if asking them, they - as if retelling the same story. Of course, there were revelations: so, it was possible to find out that one of the drivers came from St. Petersburg and thought that the load was lucky to Stavropol-this was what they told him, but already near Moscow he found out that he would have to go to Lugansk. He did not like the prospect of being in the anti -terrorist operation zone. And nobody liked it. “It doesn’t matter how we’ll come, the question is how much it will come back,” one of them sighed heavily at my question. It became clear that they got up for a long time, in the morning, here and there the cabs fell, and the drivers began to delve into the engines. It became hot, in the open air the thermometer showed forty degrees, and white paint crumbled from a green tarpaulin in some places. The cabs painted from the spray gun still held. The nameplate with the branded sign of the plant and the number of the models were painted over.

Almost three hundred cars are not only trucks, although most of them are; Together with them, white tractors with a margin of car oil, white gas trucks and a white machine with drinking water arrived in the convoy. At the back of the tap of the tank, another nameless driver washed hands, who explained that the grass under the cars was removed with safety root to avoid a fire, but got excited, the earth is like gunpowder, and it is difficult to withstand in the heat without a canopy. There are no tents and tents there. There were traces of the bulldozer on the ground, who hastily removed the soil layer while Kamaza got from Voronezh. They should not come here. Humanitarian assistance was expected in the Kharkov region. The Ukrainian Ministry of Emergencies even set up a camp near Volchansky opposite the border point. But the cars suddenly changed the route. Because of this, rumors appeared that the Russian special services at the last moment found out that hidden scanners were installed on the Ukrainian border, which check the contents of the trucks, and decided not to cross the border in this place. This version quickly became news in the Ukrainian media. At the same time, according to the agreements, the Red Cross still had to watch all the trucks. Instead, we watched the trucks. But selectively and a little embarrassed.

It doesn’t matter how to go, the question is how much it will come back.

Actually, I began to be embarrassed in response. Seeing how inconvenient the employee of the Rostov Ministry of Emergencies feels inconvenient, who took us to the camp. “Look, look what you want,” he was apologized, but at the same time he looked into the list of cars, where it seemed, which one was lucky. Each truck was sealed. Each KAMAZ is numbered. Three groups of journalists took turns asking to raise a tarp from cars, which were closer to the entrance, but, as it seemed, it was possible to persuade to do the same with any car. However, there was no one at the other end of the parking - neither cameras nor the Ministry of Emergencies, only trucks and a helicopter of escorting the Armed Forces of Russia. There were several trucks with greater sediment, the rest, judging by the wheels, were not too loaded.

The surprise still expected me. Inside the trucks. It was almost empty there. The humanitarian cargo occupied less than a third of the body volume. In one, I counted three pallets with white buckwheat bags, laid out to the top, but only in three or four rows. In other cars near the far side, boxes with stew or packaging with water huddled. "Why are they empty?" - I asked an employee of the Ministry of Emergencies and the driver who stood nearby. The first hesitated, and the driver, after a little thought, replied that it was really necessary, the cargo is actually large, what I see is nine to ten tons, the weight is distributed over all cars so as not to take risks, they will go along the poor roads of the Luhansk region and can break. The rescue officer immediately picked up this thought and further explained to everyone himself.

The fact that the load was distributed is no doubt, but why they did it remains unclear. You can’t call the roads in the anti -terrorist operation zone really good, there are sections on which you need to go around the funnels, even more roads with a very old asphalt, in pits and potholes, but still not such that bridges flew off the trucks.

I did not find explanations, but the officers of the Ukrainian army, with whom I then managed to talk, have a suspicion that the KAMAZs were carrying a lot of weapons, and when it became clear that they would not be missed without inspection, the load was hastily removed, and the remaining products were distributed. They explain their guesses by the fact that the column near Voronezh was divided into two parts and stood on the territory of the military airfield. It was then that they unloaded, they assured me. It seems impossible to check this, but even if you discard a rather controversial version of the military cargo, there is a space for speculation.

Almost everyone in conversations admits that the Russian column on Ukrainian territory can be fired and this will become an occasion for the invasion.

In any case, the humanitarian convoy turned out to be a win -win venture. For several days he distracted the attention of journalists from everything that happens on the border and in the zone of the anti -terrorist operation. In case of refusal of the Ukrainian authorities, Russia can always say that the damned junta wants to freeze the hunger of the inhabitants of Donbass. And first of all, the militants will tell this to the residents of Donbass, and so being in a slightly altered state of consciousness because of the TV, which works in between shelling, when there is light.

If Russian humanitarian assistance will officially come in, on the terms of Ukraine, then three hundred trucks will be overloaded by 50 trucks and our television will inform that the damned junta overshadowed the inhabitants of Donbass. In the end, even if buckwheat and power plants reach the goal and go to the militias, maybe for some time they will not take food from volunteers who buy products in their own money and take them for forced immigrants in the same Donetsk and old people, who do not have the opportunity to leave, no livelihoods.

Perevolens come to Donetsk, including from the outskirts of the city, from settlements that appeared on the front line. Some of them live in a hostel on Rosa Luxemburg Street. The building is surrounded by high -rise buildings, where the DPR fighters themselves live, and thus people become their living shield, and the products that are brought for families are divided among themselves.

In Donetsk, almost all cafes closed. In one of the rare open open lunches are fed for free. In the afternoon, a bus with women arrives there during the day, some come themselves and, very embarrassed, ask if it is possible to eat. They are not used to asking, but there is simply no money, because banks do not work in the city. Before the war, by the way, this place was considered expensive, there and now the prices are quite metropolitan, but the commanders and leadership of the DPR chosen the street veranda in the middle of the warring city. Some are parking near the entrance by cars selected from local businessmen. In Donetsk, it is customary to additionally decorate expensive foreign cars with some exclusive elements, and cars of Donetsk acquaintances are easily recognized in the cars of the new military elite.

On such a veranda, people in camouflage say something in the phones, talk quietly, their guard smokes a hookah, putting a machine gun directly onto a table with beautiful dishes. There, for the first time, I saw fighters really very similar to Russian Chechens. The Minister of Information of the DPR Alexander Kryakov enters there, who at the very beginning of the whole mess reported that he was fighting with Ukraine, because he is everywhere stumbled upon the image of the “boobs” and they prevent him from living. Why personally to them the humanitarian convoy is incomprehensible. Almost everyone in conversations admits that the Russian column on Ukrainian territory can be fired and this will become an occasion for the invasion. They think as it seemed to me, and the drivers of the KamAZ themselves, who still cannot restrain the alarm, despite the clear ban on discussing this with journalists.

While the trucks are standing near Izvarin, in Donetsk on the local DPR television channel they are already showing that Russian help has arrived. In the news, Russian humanitarian aid has already won Ukrainian customs. It is as if someone very stubborn in Russia makes this convoy move further, and someone very tired there is also trying to stop it somehow or at least transfer it to a legal field. Well, of course, no one can say now that it is Kamazy-if, of course, they will go somewhere-they will take it back. For example, one or two “squeezed” cars are quite placed in the body of each.