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In the Donbass, many civilians decide to stay, despite the onslaught of the Russians. Their presence complicates the fighting for the Ukrainian soldiers.
On Wednesday June 8, a team from France Télévisions has an appointment with Youri Bereza, a Ukrainian commander who leads one of the infantry battalions on the Eastern front. Smiling, he is also angry. He is annoyed with civilians who do not evacuate the towns of Donbass. “It’s a real problem. Impossible to look ahead, we look behind, where are the civilians, how to spare them”, he confides. The town of Bakhmut (Donetsk, Ukraine) is an illustration of this difficulty. Still in Ukrainian hands, it is under intense Russian artillery fire.
30% to 50% of the city’s population is still there. Calms, however short, are a reason to stay. Every day, between 300 and 400 people go to a humanitarian center, where they receive food, medicine or even clothing. “Yes, it’s dangerous, but this is my home, and I think it will get better”, says a resident. In the face of denial, seriously wounded soldiers recount, in a hospital, the difficulty of the battle of Roubizhné (Luhansk, Ukraine). “We couldn’t use our artillery against the Russians, because our civilians were in the middle. (…) We had to maneuver”explains Constantin Shevchenko.