Donbass: Fierce days

February-Luthen in Ukrainian-this year turned out to be troubled in the Donbass. The confrontation between the Ukrainian military and fighters of the unrecognized republics worsened, heavy weapons again went into business. About what is happening on both sides of the distinction line is in the report of The New Times

People who are unlucky to live in the ATO zone willingly make contact with journalists. True, they say almost the same thing that you heard in the past and in the before, and in the pose-pungent times: mainly that “gifts” from the “that side” arrived again. Here, even young children learned to recognize which weapons this time was fired at. When the cannonade intensifies - as recently, in late January - early February - alarming rumors begin to creep around the front -line cities.

Rumors and shells

“The neighbors say that they saw a column of technology from Russia, didn’t even hide,” says a friend from the village a few kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border, which is under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. “Although we have here, in the Lugansk direction, so far quietly, compared to Mariupol and Donetsk.”

“The aunt’s hospital said - she is a nurse - that you need to cook beds for future wounded,” another friend, from Lugansk - the capital of the so -called LPR, reports by phone, and asks: “It turns out, will they fight?”

These questions: whether they will begin to shoot again and when it all ends - also from the category of permanent, which have been set in front -line cities and villages for the third year in a row. No one knows answers. This time, it is only possible to verify the information about the preparation of medical institutions for the entry of the wounded: parents of colleagues, doctors from the Lugansk hospital, said that they had everything quiet, no “pre -war” orders were.

Then the shell will fall into the Donetsk filter station, which ended up almost on the battlefield, will tear the power line that comes from the Avdeevsky Koksochemical Plant, and then the inhabitants on both sides of the front are left without water, electricity and heating

Two days later, in a rather quiet Lugansk direction, the villages of Trekhizbenka and Crimean, which are located on the natural line of demarcation, the shore of the Seversky Donets river, began to be shellated. The inhabitants of the Trekhizbenki sent a photo: Mina exploded near the school, all windows were knocked out, the hall was a little damaged. For Ukrainian journalists who habitually call what is happening in the ATO zone, this is not even news. No one was killed and did not hurt, and thank God.

I am writing about the shelling of Sergei Zhadan, a famous Ukrainian writer, who is accused of involvement in terrorist activities in Russia and whom they recently tried to expel from Belarus. Sergey is from Starobelsk in the Luhansk region, this is less than 100 km from a three -time. Zhadan writes in response: Damn, in this school we lived in January 2015, spent the night in the basement in army bunks. The soldiers transferred them to the basement after the projectile hit the projected two ceilings and killed the military. This school then has not worked for a long time due to shelling, because the village actually on the front line. After Minsk-2, more or less calmed down. In late spring, people on both sides of the demarcation line began to return home: money for rented housing ended. In September 2015, we again arrived at the Trekhizbenka: the director asked to help with books. The school was washed, the school bus gathered children in the streets to take the lessons. In February 2017, the school has not been working again for several weeks.

Exchange "Gifts"

The current tactics of the Ukrainian military are to beat off the piece, at least a centimeter, its land and align the demarcation line to the one that was fixed in September 2014 in the first negotiations in Minsk. Under those agreements, Debaltseve must control the Armed Forces of Ukraine. On the Svetlodar arc, which is reaching for Debaltseve, it is now always hot - since June last year, when the Ukrainian opera singer Vasily Slipak, who returned to Ukraine from France and entered the Volunteer Corps, died in the local battles.

Another hot point is Avdeevka. Then the troops are so close to each other that the fire did not actually stop since February 2016, when the APU was repaid from the DPR Avdeevsky industrial zone. Now there is a struggle for control of the Gorlovka -Donetsk highway. Nominally, it is under the control of the DPR, but there is no Proka from this control: you can’t drive along the road, because the Ukrainian military shot it.

If earlier, Avdeevka was mainly shot from small arms, then in the fall, when the situation began to heated, Grad and Tanks again entered into business. The use of heavy weapons not only increases the number of human victims (during the week of confrontation, nine civilians died on both sides and 38 people were injured), but also damages the most important infrastructure that ensures the vital activity of both Avdeevka and Donetsk. That shell will fall into the Donetsk filter station, which ended up almost on the battlefield, will tear the power line that comes from the Avdeevsky Koksochemical Plant, and then the inhabitants on both sides of the front are left without water, electricity and heating. When problems began with heat and light, volunteers went to Avdeevka. Among them was Sergey Zhadan, who created a charity fund a month ago and arrived with heaters.

The first deputy head of the OSCE special monitoring mission Alexander Khug, every day moving from Avdeevka to Donetsk and back, did not get tired of calling: the parties should take heavy weapons so that people do not suffer. Hush only on the seventh day.

War and bourgeois

Even more complicated than in Avdeevka, the situation in the cities of Krasnogorovka and Maryinka - both are located near Donetsk, but are under the control of the Ukrainian military. The surroundings of cities are constantly sheated.

In Maryinka, 70% of the buildings are damaged. The city has been living without gas for the third year - since the gas distribution pipe was interrupted by the shallow shell. About 5 thousand people live in Maryinka now, they are all heated by stacks or electric heaters. That's just the bourgeois a thing is unsafe: a few days ago, poisoned by carbon monoxide, an elderly woman and a child died.

“Obviously, there was an old stove,” the police officer Alexei tells about this tragedy. - Mom took one child to school, and left another with the grandmother of the old, not coming. That's all. "

The head of the Maryinsky military-civil administration, Alexander Teslya, says that as soon as it gets dark, residents diverge home: “You rarely meet someone on the street: about 14-15 hours everyone already wants to be at home. It begins quickly. One shot and that's it, it becomes very hot. ”

Almost 10 thousand inhabitants remain in the neighboring Krasnogorovka. Here, too, in recent days, shelling does not stop. Because of them, schools closed-so far only for a week.

At the entrance to Krasnogorovka, near the road sign, a holey pipe of the gas pipeline, which was damaged back in 2014, is visible. Since then, there is no gas in Krasnogorovka, as in Maryinka, which means there is no warmth. People chop trees in the city and behind it, then they saw them on firewood, put them on carts or sleds and take them home - they drown the bourgeois in apartments, even in multi -storey buildings. Children help adults like two little daughters who met a young woman named Lyudmila in the center of Krasnogovka.

The bourgeois also stand in the office of Korzhov’s novel-Deputy Head of the Krasnogorovsky Military Civil Administration. “Before the war, the city switched to gas heating,” Korzhov recalls. - Even in private houses, they dismantled the stoves and put gas boilers. Now they are "silent." There are fewer people in the city, now, probably, less than 10 thousand: cold, well, the shelling has resumed. Yesterday, for example, they found six unexploded tank shells. ”

Givi's Donetsk death is reluctant to comment, but they live up, discussing who can become the next

In one of the high -rise buildings we meet its inhabitants. The house itself has a lot of windows without glasses, the apartments are empty. In some places, traces of shells hit-just holes in the walls. Two women say that for three days there are constant shooting here: “They shoot both from there and from there ... We don’t sleep at night ... At least there is electricity now. Not everyone has water, because many have frozen. There is no gas and will not be. And everyone is good. The heater is turned on and basking. There is water. We have no disaster. ”

One of the women says that he monitors the situation in Avdeevka: “Every day I read what is there on the Internet. Very disappointing. We had this in 2014, when the DPR was poured by the “grades” of the DPR. Very for them (residents of Avdeevka. - NT) I sympathize. "

Donetsk silence

The sounds of war to Donetsk are not heard in the last days, they are heard only in the Kiev district, which is closest to Avdeevka and on the other hand - to the Donetsk airport and the village of Spartak, where the war practically did not stop. But in Donetsk itself, it seems that they are not very worried about the resumption of hostilities. Military equipment in the city is not visible. In the area of ​​Motel, where in early February a powerful explosion occurred, no one believes that a shell of the Ukrainian “hurricane” came here. A resident of the neighboring house describes the situation like this: "A car with Trotil exploded, there is no funnel." But in the OSCE report, the funnel is listed - either from the “hurricane”, or from the “hail”.

On Artem Street in the center of Donetsk there is a billboard with a portrait of Givi, the commander of the Somali battalion, Mikhail Tolstoy, who was blown up on February 8 in his own office - and a laconic inscription: “Remember”. In recent weeks before his death, the Givi battalion fought just in the Avdeevsky direction, he himself was easily wounded there, which he told in the last interview to the Russian television channel Life.

In a small square near this billboard - the word "Russia" laid out with plastic letters in the form of a tricolor. And the heart is also made of plastic and also a tricolor. Givi commenting on the Donetsk murder, but revive, discussing who can become the following.

There are actually no media heroes of this war in the DPR and LPR. Who will take their place? Perhaps the writer Zakhar Prilepin, who is now the deputy military of the Donetsk battalion? The news of the new status of a Russian writer made us recall the old, back in peace, forum of book publishers in Lviv. Prilepin also came there. He and Jadan even praised each other and called each other interesting writers. Now it seems that it was in some other life that will never return.