HORLIVKA, Ukraine – Like many cities near the war front in eastern Ukraine, this city has never seen a cease-fire.
Along the small country roads that lead to Horlivka, bridges are destroyed and tank tracks are clearly visible. The separatist-held city is located some 40 kilometers north of Russian-occupied Donetsk, and only a few kilometers from the demarcation line with Ukrainian-held territory. It had a pre-war population of 272,000, today it has 180,000, according to the United Nations.
February’s Minsk II agreement to withdraw all heavy artillery has clearly not been implemented in this city, though separatist soldiers guarding several checkpoints have a different point of view.
“There are no tanks here anymore,” a separatist fighter said, introducing himself only as Petrovich. He guards the second checkpoint leading to Horlivka, still a place of intense fighting. “We only use small arms and light artillery if the enemy shoots at us. We have never violated the cease-fire.”
On June 11, three people were killed due to clashes between Russian-separatist forces and the Ukrainian army and the roads were closed for months because of fighting.
On Feb. 10 the Ukrainian-held city Kramatorsk was shelled by a rocket that many argue was launched from Horlivka. The distance between Horlivka and Kramatorsk is about 50 kilometers and within reach of missile launchers. The sound of distant explosions could be heard in Horlivka on June 18, though it was unclear from which side.
Petrovich blamed the Ukrainian forces.
“They’re trying to provoke us,” he said. “When we use force, then only we get blamed for those killed. America and Europe, they all point their finger at us. Ukraine knows how to play this game as the international community keeps accusing us of war crimes, but the true war criminals are the Ukrainians.”
Further into Horlivka, life continues.
A few teenagers skateboard on the central street, and war seems to be nowhere near. The joy and laughter of three innocent teenagers make it look like there has never been a war. That’s the façade, however. One of the teens, 16-year old Pavel, a tall, blond basketball player, bows his head to the ground when he recalls severe shelling near his house in the outskirts of Horlivka.
“I needed to bring my four-year-old sister to the basement. My parents were both working when bombs came in. It was scary. My sister survived, and me too, but I just want it to stop. In April alone some classmates of mine were killed,” Pavel told the Kyiv Post.
He was too afraid to give his last name because his parents work in Horlivka.
“Since the war started, it’s sometimes best not to talk at all. I’m just a kid who’s grown up very fast in one year’s time,” he said.
Despite the continued fighting around Horlivka, the statue of Vladimir Lenin still overlooks the central square. Some women sell goods and vegetables. One of them, 69-year old Valentina Matravsky, loudly yells at the small market. She wants to sell flowers. Every man that passes by gets screamed at.
“Look at these flowers! Your wife will love them!” Matravsky yells to a passerby.
Most don’t pay attention to her.
“I don’t care who controls the street here,” she says. “The Ukrainian army or (separatists) as long as I can go to sleep without thinking if I would wake up the next morning,” she said.
Matravsky then suddenly points her finger into the northwestern direction: the front line.
“That way leads to Dzerzhynsk where my two sons live now,” she said. “It’s also a frontline city just like Horlivka, but on the side of what some consider the enemy. I don’t care. I visit them once in a while, and what I see is that we, people under the Donetsk People’s Republic, have it worse than those who live in Ukrainian-held territory.”
Then, Matravsky holds up her hand as she begins to account for the complications of her life under the Russian-separatist forces.
“First, we cannot withdraw cash here so all of us need to get somehow to a bank in Ukraine,” she said. “Second, life supplies are scarce here. And there are dozens of other reasons. Why I decide to stay here? Because it’s Horlivka, and I will never abandon my hometown. Where else would I live? I don’t have many years to live and I don’t want to spend the last years of my life in a shit hole.”
Horlivka is quieter than before, much to the surprise of the people in the separatist-held frontline city.
“A month ago rockets were pouring down like rain. Now it seems that the ‘rain storm’ has moved elsewhere,” said 32-year-old car mechanic Dmytro Korniyenko.
His face is dirty and unwashed. In his apartment there is no water and he complains that the Horlivka authorities do nothing about it.
“It’s a result of this war,” he says. “Ukraine is about to cut off this region and we will face the consequences. The so-called DNR authorities might try to solve it, but I’m sure to say that it won’t solve at all. Look at the city around you, and you’ll know what I mean.”
Kyiv Post contributor Stefan Huijboom is a Dutch journalist.
