“No matter how many Russian soldiers are brought here, we will fight. We will defend ourselves“: the offensive announced by the Kremlin and feared by part of the international community began on Monday April 19, 2022 in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thus announced in a speech broadcast on Telegram: “Now we can say that Russian troops have started the battle for Donbass, for which they have been preparing for a long time. A very large part of the entire Russian army is now devoted to this offensive“.
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On the spot, as the special correspondents of franceinfo could feel it, the tension had already been very strong for several weeks. Like a vise tightening on the Ukrainian forces in the Donbass. The Russians have already entered the town of Kreminna, 50 kilometers from Kramatorsk, after a major attack and are getting dangerously close to the towns of Severodonetsk and Lyssychantsk where the territorial defense volunteers, this reservist army made up of civilians , did not hide their concern.
From the city of Lyssychantsk, we can see the front line and columns of black smoke rising towards the sky. “The situation is very difficult, because the Russian forces have been shelling non-stop for three weeks” testifies Sergei, about sixty years old. He’s one of the Territorial Defense Force officers. He notes an intensification of Russian strikes “especially in Roubizhne, Severodonetsk and Lyssychantsk. But Moscow has sent cannon fodder, they are not motivated while on our side, we protect our native land, we defend our people, our parents”.
They won’t let go, while “the battle for Donbass” began, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
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A fight for the survival of their nation, but an unequal fight laments Mikhail, with a beard of several months and a Kalashnikov on his shoulder. “Without the help of the civilized world like Europe, America, Canada or Japan, Ukraine will not be able to face Russia, we need this support without delay”, he pleads.
“We need heavy artillery, tanks, planes. Because at this stage, we can hold our positions in the Donbass, but we cannot reconquer the territories that we have lost”.
“That’s an American weapon”, said Bartel, in his forties, pointing to a gun. He wants to warn the Europeans, because, for him, the Russian president, whom he has renamed, will not stop at Ukraine. “One day, ‘Putler’ is going to attack Europe. I call him ‘Putler’, like all our fighters, in reference to Hitler. He is destroying a nation, he is even attacking civilians”, said the fighter. When asked who can stop Vladimir Putin, he answers “The European Union, if it gives us the military aid we need, we can stop it”. And Russia intends to take advantage of this military superiority to annex the Donbass, which it has coveted for years.