A message blazoned on the wall of a ruined building in the Donetsk region quickly went viral on Ukrainian social media: “Mr. Trump! I am from Donbas – why should I surrender my home and my region to Russia? Donbas is Ukraine.”
In the photo, on the right, stands Vitaliy Ovcharenko, a sergeant in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who painted this message on a destroyed building in the Donetsk combat zone.
By 2026, Russia’s offensive has slowed to a crawl, while its losses have mounted. The front in Donbas has barely shifted in six months, and the battles for the mining town of Pokrovsk – once home to 60,000 people, now a wasteland where Ukrainian and Russian forces fight over the remnants of apartment blocks – have dragged on for more than a year.
The pace of Russia’s offensive, in 2026, has slowed to a crawl, while losses have mounted. The front in Donbas has barely moved for half a year, and the battles for the mining town of Pokrovsk, once home to 60,000 people, now a wasteland where Ukrainian and Russian forces fight over the remnants of apartment blocks – have dragged on for more than a year.
Is Russia running out of steam, and simply trying – with the help of American officials – to secure the surrender of Donbas, something it cannot achieve on the battlefield?
Ovcharenko, who has had Russians in front of him since 2014, believes the answer is yes.
He already liberated his hometown of Lyman in Donbas in the autumn of 2022. And he believes that Ukraine can regain control over the occupied territories – with nothing to give away.
He explains how and why in this exclusive interview.
You are from Donbas. From a small town in Donetsk region. Tell us, what is Donbas to you?
It is my homeland, my home, the land where I was born, grew up, matured, became who I am.
Some say that the Donbas that once existed is gone, that it has been destroyed. Do you agree?
You know, maybe in some ways those people are right. Because as time passes, we may romanticize certain moments. But that is natural for absolutely everyone and for any part of the world. Of course, because of shelling and occupation, the Donbas we knew will no longer exist in the same way.
Some cities have changed greatly. People, in a certain sense, have changed. Does that give us any right – or reason – not to fight for it?
No, I do not think so. I do not believe that the fight for our Donbas is somehow lost just because it has changed. It has changed, but we are changing it too. And we will continue to change it. For example, I was changing Donbas both before 2014 and after. If I stay alive, I will continue to change it. And after our victory, after the return and liberation of Donbas – even its occupied part – I will continue to change it.
How did you join the resistance forces?
I fled Donetsk sometime in the second half of May 2014. I witnessed that separatist “referendum” on May 11, which was conducted hastily and with every possible violation. We all fled because our lives were in danger. When I left, I went to one of the military enlistment offices in Kyiv, and they told me they did not need people at that moment.
After that, I called acquaintances of mine who were serving at the time in the volunteer battalion “Artemivsk,” under the Dnipropetrovsk regional police department. On the same base where Dnipro-1 had been formed, a patrol battalion was created – essentially a police battalion.
What do you remember from fighting in 2014?
What I remember is that about 50% of my battalion were guys from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. About 50%, maybe even 55%. Definitely more than half. Mostly they were representatives of national-democratic forces whom I knew – people who, before 2014, had been election observers, or even run for office.
But there were also miners, ordinary working men. They were completely different people. Ours – from Donetsk. And they immediately went to fight for Ukraine. There were even critics of the Euromaidan. There were people from Donetsk who had not supported it. But it is one thing not to support some internal Ukrainian protest or event. It is another thing to confront Russian occupation.
Tell us how it began. You were in Donetsk until May, right?
From around March 5, we began seeing crowds of men walking around Donetsk who spoke in distinctly Russian accents, using words that even Russian-speakers in Donetsk did not know. For example, “zyoma,” short for “fellow countryman” – “zemliak”. No one in Donetsk spoke like that. At first, I did not even understand what they meant.
Then, people living in Snizhne and Shakhtarsk called me and said that bus convoys of men were coming from Russia, most likely to disperse a pro-Ukrainian rally. And that is exactly what happened.
They did not know the city of Donetsk, confused the streets, and were constantly looking for exchange offices to change rubles.
There were also moments when these Russians were triggered by the color orange in Donetsk. They thought orange was the symbol of Yushchenko and the Orange Revolution. These idiots did not know that orange and black are the colors of the football club Shakhtar Donetsk, a symbol of Donbas. These degenerates tried to tear down orange flags. No local in Donbas in their right mind would remove those sacred orange-and-black colors in Donetsk.
There is even a video from the area of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Street, at the corner of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi and Universytetska, where there was a beer kiosk with orange-and-black colors of Shakhtar displayed. In the video, these idiots start a fight, climb onto the kiosk, and tear down the flags. After that, everything became clear.
Was there any resistance to these people?
Sometimes we physically showed that Donbas is Ukraine. We beat them back when they attacked and occupied the Donetsk Regional State Administration. We did not want it to come to that…but we understood that peaceful protest had become a fiction.
And after some “educational work,” we found Russian passports on these men. Then it became clear: they were Russians from border regions, coming to tell the residents of Donbas how to love their homeland.
Tell us about the Debaltseve operation, and about the ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation) in general. How did you realize you were really fighting Russians and not some local “Donbas militia?”
First of all, they themselves posted a lot of information about themselves.
They posted huge amounts on social media: Chita, Ulan-Ude, Urengoy. Our OSINT analysts were just growing at that time – it was good training for them to collect data on Russian positions. They themselves shared a lot.
Secondly, our colleagues in positions who had captured Russian radios heard it from call signs, from accents, from the style of negotiations. It was clear these were the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. They did many things professionally – no “militia” could do that.
Videos from Donetsk hospitals showed burned Buryat soldiers, with Kobzon shaking hands and saying, “Are you Buryat? I am so glad!” On the frontlines, when shopping or walking around, they did not hide who they were.
How did you end up in the Ukrainian Armed Forces after the volunteer battalion?
I fought in Debaltseve in 2014-2015. After the operation, we were encircled but managed to escape. I sustained an injury.
A doctor at the Kharkiv Interior Ministry hospital told me it would be better to resign and not physically strain my back anymore. So I resigned in 2015, around April. Until 2022, I was engaged in civic activity.
In February and March 2022, I joined an unofficial unit – there were many in Ukraine at the time. By the end of March, I was officially enlisted in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Where are you fighting now?
I am a sergeant. I serve in one of the units of the Ground Forces, which I cannot name. But I have managed to be everywhere. It is very symbolic that I fought in Bakhmut, which used to be called Artemivsk – like my first battalion. Then in Chasiv Yar. I even managed to be in Sudzha, in Russia.
It is also symbolic that I was there on the first day of the liberation of Lyman, my hometown in the northern Donetsk region. On the very first day of liberation, I took part in it and even participated in the initial “perishing” operation. We were leaving Lyman as the perishing from Russian forces was just beginning – we had already done our job and were withdrawing.
I entered my parents’ house literally 10 hours after the occupiers had fled. Russians and collaborators had been living there. They fled at night, and we were there in the afternoon. It was unsettling to realize that less than 10 hours earlier, Russian occupiers had been living among my belongings, on my beds, in my childhood room, in my childhood home. It was surreal to enter a shop in Lyman and see prices in rubles and Russian products on the shelves.
Do you believe Ukraine can regain Donbas?
I am certain of it. And in the last two weeks, my pessimism – which I had before – has disappeared. I have always believed positively. I had some pessimism, but a couple of weeks ago it faded.
Why?
Because we are killing more Russians than they are mobilizing. Their army is beginning to melt at the front. Recently, there has been a trend: we are killing more of them than they can mobilize or recruit on contract. And they need more. They need to continue the offensive, and I do not think they will devote much attention to training now – which means even greater losses. They will act “on the move.” They cannot pause. They need successes. And how? Only by sending more and more people forward. Meanwhile, we already have established crews, drones, and we have reached a certain technological level. At some point, I think they may overstretch themselves.
They cannot sell Russian society any real victory. They can claim they achieved some goals of the “special military operation,” but we know their real goal is all of Ukraine, with Kyiv – not just Donbas. And that main goal is slipping further away from them every day. They are at a crossroads, and they have no good options.
You know how on the international stage Ukraine is constantly advised to surrender Donbas supposedly for the sake of peace…
No, and once again no. I am categorically against it. I believe Donbas is our home, our house.
It is not some bargaining chip for American politicians who, for the sake of their ratings or ego, advise us to give something away. That is immoral, wrong, and dishonest.
We understand perfectly well that we cannot surrender our territory just like that, based on promises from Russia, which has violated them more than once.
Russia understands only the language of force. And for the war to end, Ukraine must be given as much firepower, strength, and means as possible, so that it can inflict maximum damage on the Russian army and military infrastructure. When Russia overstretches itself, then it will negotiate for real.