DEBALTSEVE, Ukraine – “The road we’re standing on now is the connection between Ukraine and Rostov-on-Don, Russia,” the Ukrainian soldier said as he motioned to an icy, cratered road punctuated with concrete-clad blockposts and demarcated on both sides by deep virgin snow.
“On the left side, the LPR (separatist Luhansk People’s Republic), on the right, the DPR (separatist Donetsk People’s Republic),” the soldier went on. “People are trying to leave there and come here, so we need to keep the road open. But this means the enemy can see us, and they are constantly attacking our position.”
Those attacks intensified as separatists surged forward, having forced Ukrainian troops to abandon Donetsk Airport after 242 days. Now Debaltseve, with a pre-war population of 30,000 residents and once a working railway center, stands as the easternmost bastion of Ukrainian forces in Donetsk Oblast.
Russian rockets pounded the remains of the city relentlessly as soldiers huddled underground to avoid the lethal hail.
During a rare lull in the shelling, a patrol discovered separatists had hit a kindergarten, smashing the front of the building and wreaking havoc inside. Children’s mattresses, wrenched from the building by the power of the explosion, lay burning in the rubble.
Smashed glass littered small beds where children once took their afternoon naps, now ripped apart and thrown across the room. Ukrainian missiles roared overhead, seeking vengeance on the rebel Grad launchers, exploding several miles away in a series of flat, powerful thuds.
Fortunately the kindergarten’s children had been evacuated overnight as Debaltseve residents fled the city. Those few remaining have been forced to adjust to a terrifying morning routine.
Each day Viktoriya and her family wake up to falling shells at around 7:45 a.m. and flee to shelter in temperatures below freezing. She was too afraid to be identified publicly by her full name.
“When we hear the Grad (rockets) landing somewhere close – the house is usually shaking – we run barefoot to our basement and my husband takes our gas canister. It could explode and destroy the house. If we hear ordinary shooting we just go to the basement.”
Two civilians were killed and three wounded during shelling on Jan. 22, just one day after a father and his 11 year-old son, also hit by a rebel rocket, were buried. A handful of friends and relatives were able to hastily bury them during a lull in fighting, only for Russian-made shells to continue randomly raining down death on the city 10 minutes later. In Ukraine, this is the new Russian roulette.
Yet despite bombardment and encirclement, several thousand Ukrainian troops cling on to their defensive positions around the strategically important town, where intersecting railway lines connect the key cities of east Ukraine.
On Jan. 22, their checkpoints were reinforced by tanks and heavy fortifications, the tension palpable at each as they prepared for imminent enemy attack.
Soldier Pavel is a veteran of 14 years and has served in peacekeeping forces in conflicts across Africa. Now he is fighting alongside freshly mobilized recruits in a fierce struggle to maintain control of a strategic road junction in his own country. Not one of his comrades-in-arms at the checkpoint has more than a year’s military experience.
“Just half an hour ago they hit our position with grenade launchers and grads (rockets), but they’re also using Kalashnikovs. We suppressed them quickly, so no one was hurt. But it’s difficult, there were about fifty civilians at the checkpoint when they opened fire. The situation at Debaltseve is one of the most difficult on the front, it comes under fire every day.”
But the local inhabitants are not particularly glad to have his fellow soldiers there, many of whom have seen less than a year’s military service.
“Ukrainian soldiers are walking on the streets with weapons, drunk!” said Valentina, a 41 year-old mother of two, who also didn’t want to be identified publicly for safety reasons.
She is angry with the war, with Russia, but especially the Ukrainian soldiers based in the city, who largely come from cities and towns in the country’s west. “Today at six in the morning “our” Ukrainian military was destroying Horlivka,” she complained. “From Debaltseve they are shooting Horlivka. They are killing peaceful people.”
Much like Donetsk Airport, the key to Debaltseve’s military significance has been rendered useless. The train station itself appears abandoned, the only sign of recent activity are fresh pockmarks on two steel freight cars hit by rocket shrapnel. The rocket’s expended casing lies on the tracks opposite, a symbol of the city’s past identity, and its new one.
Kyiv Post editor Max Tucker can be reached at [email protected] or via twitter @MaxRTucker
Editor’s Note: This article has been produced with support from www.mymedia.org.ua, financially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, and implemented by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action. Content is independent of the financial donor.
