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In response to
"‘I want to kill them all.’
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by
crash davis
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‘It’s tense’: Under constant fire, Ukrainian soldiers dismiss any suggestion that they cede land.
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DONETSK PROVINCE, Ukraine — Red flames crackled in the golden wheat field, the target of Russian artillery just minutes earlier. In the yard of a nearby house, the commander of a Ukrainian frontline unit was finishing his lunch of noodles from a tin bowl. As more shells exploded in the fields, his men took cover in their bunkers.
It was midsummer, and life on the front lines in the eastern Donetsk region had seen little letup. Ukrainian soldiers serving there said they lived under almost constant Russian artillery and aerial bombardment. The fields and hedgerows around them were charred and smoldering. Their days and nights were interspersed with the sharp bangs of outgoing Ukrainian artillery and the deeper, rumbling explosions of incoming fire.
“It’s tense,” said the commander, Samson, 55, who, like most members of the Ukrainian military, asked to be identified by only his code name in accord with military protocol. “There is daily mortar fire, airplanes, helicopters, ‘Grads.’ They have a lot of ammunition.” Grad, meaning hail, is the Russian acronym for a commonly used multiple rocket launcher system.
Outnumbered and outgunned, the Ukrainians said the success or failure of their fight would depend on whether they receive more and better arms. But they said they were determined to try to hold every inch of what is still theirs in Donetsk Province, despite heavy losses.
Several dismissed the suggestion that they cede territory or give up the fight as ludicrous. If they did not fight here, Russia would go the whole way to the capital, Kyiv, they said.
“There is no choice,” Serhii, 44, a career soldier with one unit, said. “We are protecting our country.”
The Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine was relentless all summer since Moscow redirected its efforts from Kyiv to the eastern provinces. In late June, the last two cities in Luhansk Province fell after weeks of pitiless bombardment and turned their sights on the next province of Donetsk.
Dug in throughout the woods and villages, Ukrainian troops fought off further Russian advances. Units blocked a Russian attack in early July, knocking out a group of tanks in a battle in the farming village of Verkhnokamianske, according to members of the military and civilians in the area.
The blow stalled the Russian advance and brought a lull in places on the front lines, soldiers said. Military doctors said they had seen a drop in casualties arriving from the front for several days last week after the battle. Russian troops came close to seizing the town of Bakmut, but by September, they were starting to cede ground.
— Carlotta Gall
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