(Donbass) While fighting rages in Donbass and the Russian army seems to be gaining ground every day, some residents remain convinced of a Ukrainian victory. But for the soldiers on the front, the time is no longer for optimism, noted our collaborator.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The contrast is striking. In Kyiv, two museums welcome visitors with carcasses of Russian armored vehicles, remains of helicopters shot down at the start of the war and other relics of the passage of enemy troops. In the capital, where Russian troops withdrew at the beginning of April, it is as if the war was a thing of the past.
PHOTO UESLEI MARCELINO, REUTERS
A man stands next to damaged parts of a Russian helicopter displayed as part of an exhibition on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at the Museum of the History of Ukraine in World War II, Kyiv, in last May.
Yet, a few hundred kilometers to the east, the Russian steamroller continues to advance. The city of Sievierodonetsk lives under a deluge of fire and could become a new Mariupol. Some 80% of the city would be in the hands of the Russians and 90% of the city would be destroyed, according to the governor of the Luhansk region, Serguïï Gaïdaï.
“I know we are going to win”
Sergi, 36, is from this industrial city which had 100,000 inhabitants before the war. He lived there all his life. A journalist on local television, he had to flee with his whole family after the bombing of his apartment. A few days ago, for the first time, he returned to the nearby town of Lysychansk. From his heights, he could see his own city go up in smoke. “I tried to pay my respects to my brother’s grave, in Siversk, just next door, but I had to turn back. There is continuous shelling, only shell craters where there were cherry blossoms a year ago. »
Sergi, however, has lost none of his faith in the Ukrainian victory. “It’s not hope or wishful thinking, I know we’re going to win,” he said.
The Russians are not only fighting against the Ukrainian army, but against an entire people. The failure of Putin’s war in Ukraine will mark the fall of the Russian empire.
Sergi, from Sievierodonetsk
Many of them agree with him that the outcome of the war will be favorable to them. Oleksei, 43, has swapped his hat as a director of a dance studio in Sloviansk for that of a courier between the front and the back. Several times a week, he undertakes the long journey to Dnipro, the largest city west of the Donbass, to collect equipment for the soldiers on the front.
In 2014, when Sloviansk had been occupied by pro-Russian separatists for a few months, he left the city. Not this time. “Things have changed a lot since 2014, no one sees Russia as a brother country anymore. They thought they would be greeted with flowers, but they were greeted by tanks. Their army is at the end of its tether,” Oleksei wants to believe.
PHOTO HUGO LAUTISSIER, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Ivan, 32, and Nina, 30, run the last cafe in Sloviansk.
In Sloviansk, in the last cafe still open in the city, Ivan, 32, and Nina, 30, the owners, also firmly believe in a victory for the Ukrainian army. The city is a military and symbolic objective for Moscow whose troops are approaching, less than 30 km.
“We will not close until the Russians are at the gates of the city, maintains Nina. We like to believe that it’s more than a café here, it’s civilization that refuses to leave. They draw the trident, the symbol of the Ukrainian nation, on the cappuccinos of the soldiers who have come to seek a moment of rest. “We lack ammunition, fuel oil, but we are holding on. The Russians are demoralized. Not us, says Andrew, a soldier from Kyiv, sipping his coffee. We fight for our land, that’s why we will win. »
” Cannon fodder ”
But the closer we get to the front, the less the outcome of the conflict seems to be unanimous. In three months of war, the Ukrainian army has been put to the test and the Russian vice is tightening. The soldiers complain in particular about the lack of heavy weapons promised by the West. “It’s getting very hard,” says Andrew, whose group now only includes 4 fighters alive out of the 60 at the start. On Wednesday, the Ukrainian president announced that Ukrainian forces were losing between 60 and 100 soldiers every day, killed in action.
In the city of Bakhmout, located a few kilometers from the fighting, soldiers are resting in the last open kebab in the city. Everyone looks exhausted. Nikita, in her thirties, chained cigarettes. He returns from Soledar, a small village constantly pounded by the Russian army. Three civilians died there during the morning. “We are just pawns. There is the hierarchy above and then there is us, and we are told: “Forward, forward!” We really are cannon fodder. »
His sidekick, Alexei, 56, has already fought in the Donbass between 2014 and 2016. “Everything is different now. It is an artillery war. At the time, it was an infantry war. We are bombarded by planes, helicopters, tanks, mortars, Grad missiles. What can we do against that? A machine gun against a tank… what do you think our chances are? »