For two and a half years, Ukrainian soldiers in Donbass have been fighting tirelessly to prevent the Russians from passing. Incessant fighting that wears out the soldiers on the front.
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The situation is still “extremely difficult” around the city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself acknowledged this. The Russian army has made this city of more than 50,000 inhabitants its priority. Fierce fighting has been going on there for months now. And the Ukrainian soldiers are exhausted, but determined nonetheless, as franceinfo has noted. We were able to meet several of them, in a training camp, about twenty kilometers back from the front.
Pavlo and his comrades have stopped counting how many bullets have been fired since the beginning of the war, how many enemies have been killed, how many times death has been avoided. They have been fighting on the Donbass front for two and a half years. “I’ve already forgotten who I was before the war. Time passes. I’ve finally gotten used to who I’ve become.”
“On the front lines, you either retreat or dig in to survive.”
Pavlo, Ukrainian soldierto franceinfo
What he has become is an exhausted man who prays every day to save his skin. “I never thought that in war, a shovel was so important and that it could save you.” Burying themselves to escape Russian drones is the daily life of these infantrymen like Pavlo, who despite everything does not let himself be defeated. “You have to try to stay positive, tell jokes with the guys to take your mind off things.”
But where to find the motivation, the strength to continue fighting, when every day the Ukrainians are retreating on the front? Teren is the leader of a unit of ten infantrymen. “We are almost all exhausted, but we remain motivated. Since I have been here, for two and a half years on the Donbass front, I have understood that we have to stop the Russians here, otherwise it will be too late.”
Teren also talks about his other motivation, “contact with brothers in arms”. “Calling those who are wounded. Each of us has left a part of ourselves behind : family, loved ones… So calling them, talking to them, that motivates me. For example, I have two children that I try to call as soon as I can.” Calling them yes, but seeing them is very rare. Ukrainian soldiers are only allowed 30 days of leave per year.