Just to stop shooting

On September 5, Vladimir Putin announced the readiness of Moscow to introduce the UN peacekeepers into the conflict zone in the Donbass, but only on the line of distinction between Ukrainian forces and self -proclaimed republics. On September 7, Petro Poroshenko announced the disagreement of Kyiv with the Russian approach and recalled the demand of the Ukrainian side to place peacekeepers in the entire zone of conflict, including on the border between Ukraine and Russia. On September 8, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that this requirement is contrary to the Minsk agreements.

Despite the differences, the very possibility of discussing this topic by all involved parties is great progress in negotiations around the war in the east of Ukraine. The Radio correspondent Freedom visited cities and villages directly adjacent to the front line in the Donbass, in order to understand how the problem looks from the point of view of civilians on both sides of the contact line.

- I went to the store with a girl. She went inside, and I took a step aside and hit the wall three bullets of the shallow, in the place where I stood before, right at the level of my head, ”says Sergey from Dokuchaevsk, the city of being controlled by the self -proclaimed DPR. The guy is 15 years old, and he feels immortal, he smiles when he says that he “escorted the girl”, not at all focusing on the “bullets in the wall”.

Under these conditions, any turn of a large -caliber machine gun, launched into the sky along a drone or enemy, always falls on the streets of the city

Bullets in the walls and just on the asphalt in Dokuchaevsk have long been everyday life. The city is compact, small, concentrated around the city-forming fluss-donkeys. Around the abandoned terrikons and the dumps of the concrete careers overhanging the streets. For dumps and at many dominant heights from the south, east and west, the position of the Ukrainian army. Ukrainian KPVV Novotroitskoye, through which people constantly go through a line of contact, far in the rear of Dokuchaevsk. At the dachas that are in the city line, the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces are also located - they can be seen from the windows of cars hurrying along the highway on the Ukrainian territory to the "zero" checkpoints. Under these conditions, any turn of a large -caliber machine gun, launched into the sky along a drone or enemy, always falls on the streets of the city.

The city is in reach of the "permitted" infantry weapon. Here they show the store, in the window of which the "wire shell" flew. Soviet controlled anti -tank missiles from portable PTRCs drew all the shelf life at the storage bases. They are controlled by a cable that flies behind the projectile, and if they touched the grass or shrub when starting, then they fly later along the most bizarre trajectories. For example, the rocket flew into the store, bypassing the five -story building, which seemed to cover it from the nearest section of the contact line.

The main difference between the territories controlled by the self -proclaimed DPR from the "Ukrainian" is that damage is being repaired here faster

Mines and shells sometimes fly into the streets of the city. The main difference between the territories controlled by the self -proclaimed DPR from the "Ukrainian" is that the damage is repaired here faster. In Donetsk there are no open tender procedures and other democratic attempts to prevent theft. The authorized private company produces “defect” damage and hires contractors, building materials according to the request are famous for the famous “white” humanitarian convoys from Russia.

In the morning, automatic queues suddenly rang out in the city market of Dokuchaevsk, it seemed that this was happening a few meters from here, since dumps and high -rise buildings gave multiple echo. But none of the buyers in the market even accelerated the pace.

In the Ukrainian Avdeevka, a residential five -story building on Gagarina Street, a direct hit of a heavy shell in February in February, began to disassemble in mid -August. Will finish in a couple of weeks. “The shell here gave it!” The local woman explains. “And we were lucky, through our house it flew and hit in the 7th, this is two quarters from here!”

The famous house with the face of a local teacher in Avdeevka

In Avdeevka, a "truce" is now. This means that they shoot mainly only at the "industrial", that is, on the area of the industrial zone on the border of Avdeevka and Donetsk, where battles have been going on since the beginning of 2017. The city is also quite compact, and the explosions are well audible. Avdeevka and Dokuchaevsk are similar at least by the fact that it flies on three sides - from the south, west and east, moreover, they have one northern supply of supply.

The famous world was mural with the face of a local teacher who looks from the wall of the extreme house in the field, from where shells arrive, just at the western end of the city. And the battles in the "industrial zone" are the eastern part of the city adjacent to the so -called old Avdeevka, the district of private houses. It’s not at all to understand something to the local one.

Since February 2017, here the hottest section of the war

In the old days, from the Avdeevsky Koksochemical Plant (AKHZ) there was a tram to the Donetsk village of Spartak, and in a promising plan of the development of Yasinovataya before the war, Black and Belarus was written the goal of "becoming a sleeping area of Donetsk." The triangle Yasinovataya-Avdeevka-Donetsk is almost a single city conglomeration with a population of more than a million people. Now Yasinovataya and Donetsk are in the zone of the self -proclaimed DPR, and Avdeevka and 70 percent of the Yasinovatsky district are controlled by Ukraine. Between them in a draw between the positions of the parties there is a Donetsk filter station, which cleanses water for Avdeevka, Yasinovataya and Northern part of Donetsk. And this is the hottest section of the war since February 2017.

In two days in Avdeevka that the Radio correspondent spent there, there were almost two dozen shelling. And also no one even shuddered.

- To distinguish the "arrivals" from the "departures" is simple. When flies, the sound is like a clash of two railway cars, such a loud characteristic sound of a strong blow of a metal sheet on metal. And the departure is just a loud cotton! - explained Eduard Ryapolov , the head of the first coke chemical workshop of AKHZ.

From the beginning of the war, 340 shells flew at AKHZ, there were many wounded, 12 plant workers were killed. They died mainly in the city, only two were killed on the way to work or from it, there are commemorative signs on the site of their death.

Eduard Ryapolov does not talk about the war, just with an eternal smile, he recalls the direct hits of the Grad missiles in coke stoves. He is one of the few in Avdeevka is firmly convinced that the declared truce is working. Exclusively because artillery shells on the city and factory do not fall right now.

In Avdeevka, the stadium has an excellent new tennis court, a basketball court and an artificial football field, which are constantly engaged in children's groups. And nearby is an impromptu "folk" monument. To the granite plate, people stole a lot of iron - pipes from the rockets "Grad", fragments. On the plate, an inscription dedicated to the victims of the "undeclared war", and many photos in cellophane glued to the stone with tape.

They did not leave the shelling zone, their shops always traded, even when everyone else closed

Brothers Andrei and Sergey Novaki own four shops, two restaurants, a sandy quarry and an asphalt plant in Avdeevka. They did not leave the shelling zone themselves, their shops always traded, even when everyone else closed. They always had their own bread than they are especially proud of. Their statistics of the three years of the war are as follows: one store received a direct hit of the projectile, in another shell carried out a showcase, the Grad missile flew to the roof of the Russian stove of the Ethno-restaurant “log” and killed three employees, fragments were chosen by pontoons and a dredger (a technical fleet, designed to produce dnieving work.-RS), which sank.

When you talk to people in such places, you always be shy to ask: "Why are you staying here? Why are there such victims?" For thousands of people living along the line of contact, such a question does not exist, since they "live life" here.

In Dokuchaevsk, since March, the only zoo and a pool with a sports complex in the Donetsk region was again launched. Two and a half hundred children are engaged in the pool. The city has its own hero - a boy who dismantled a cartridge from the Russian large -caliber machine gun "Utes" in the mathematics lesson. The boy was torn off his left hand, but he continued to swim and won two distances at the competitions for the disabled at the December memorial Alexander Popov in Moscow. The boy’s name is Vitaly Osmychenko, he is 14 years old, and he is already a candidate for master of sports in swimming.

The entrance to the zoo is free. In 2015, one pony died there, the other shelter. Even during the shelling, the monkey died of a rupture of her heart and some looters at night planted the female Orlan on an iron rod. Animals suffer in war along with people.

Cats say fighters, eat in positions on both sides, and the camps of cats "on the other side" are tracked

Under Mariupol in the village of Vodyanoy at the hottest point the line of the Donbass confrontation continues to live 13 people. Vodyanoy is controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, and the neighboring Cominternovo - a self -proclaimed DPR. In the village of the rear of the Ukrainian part, which holds the defense in the field. The main news here is the fate of the dog named Abram. When shelling, she interrupted her leg, the soldiers took the dog to Mariupol for the operation, he is now in a good clinic, and the entire 59th APU brigade is waiting for his return. And the fighters do not really like cats. Cats, according to their firm confidence, eat in positions on both sides, and the camps of cats "on the other side" are regularly monitored, the fighters assure.

Between Vodyanoy and Kominternovo 2.5 kilometers and the line of contact in the middle. There are a lot of cats, and they look quite well.

In all these places they do not discuss a truce, the input of peacekeepers, Minsk, Moscow and other initiatives. Here they live among the real picture of this war and in the daily mode are convinced that political negotiations do not intersect with the real situation on the front line. In the water, several funnels are more than three meters deep. Over -power charges flew at the end of August, at the end of the "bread" truce before the announcement of the "school". Locals suggest that this is a know-how of the DPR-rockets with an additional charge of explosives launched from artisanal jackets of the Partizan type.

A resident of Valery Valery Ivashchenko was left without a house

Everyone hears night shootings in positions. On May 13 of this year, Six shells flew into the house of Valery Ivashchenko on May 13 this year. The house burned down with his wife’s documents, there is no roof, from the Volga that stood in the garage, there was only a charred skeleton. Valery collects metal around the house to hand it over to scrap metal.

He spends the night in the basement, where he spent electricity and lowered the sofa. Valery is 76 years old, in the yard he digs a garden. He firmly knows that he will return to the ruins of his house in the spring and restore it as much as he can. And he will live, and far away, how much it will turn out. He does not particularly follow the news about the peacekeepers, he says that he only thinks about how to survive now.

Valery Ivashchenko now lives in the basement

Russia's proposals for the peacekeepers of the UN, with whom Vladimir Putin made, look unacceptable for Ukraine. Putin emphasized that "these forces should be in this connection on the demarcation line and in any other territories," and once again repeated that to discuss the topic of peacekeepers, "direct contact with representatives of the self -proclaimed republics of the DPR and the LPR."

Ukraine against any direct contacts and recognition of the current authorities of the Ordlo. In March of this year, she asked for a peacekeeping contingent at the UN, which would become on the Russian-Ukrainian border.

As for the self -proclaimed republics, that it would be worth "concreting the front line for years" in the DPR spoke back in May. And the scenario of the introduction of the UN peacekeepers is not on the border of Ukraine - Russia and the entire territory of the self -proclaimed republics, but only on the confrontation line - this is just the conservation of the current status for years.

What the current negotiations on peacekeepers will come to, is still unclear. But observations of people in the ATO zone say that on both sides there are enough people who will make any political decisions - if only they stop shooting right now. And there it will be seen.