Siversk, one of many cities without personality of Donbasmedium-sized town and precarious apartment blocks four-story, population burst to satiety during the bloody battle between the forces russian and ukrainian that took place last July, a town where there is no not a single apartment of housing not present artillery hits, sunken ceilingseither balconies blackened by flamesblack hole where a handful of human shadows still walks on it frozen mud of its deserted streets, symbolizes like few others the state of mind with which the Ukrainian side faces this second year of Russian invasion. Located on the same border that separates the provinces of Donetsk and luganskwith the horizon presided over by the silhouette of the gigantic petrochemical plant of Lisichanskalready in the hands of the Kremlin troops, this city and its surroundings are one of the scenarios where the troops of the gonor groupcommanded by Serhii Filimonov, they repel Russian incursions almost daily that try to break through the front and complete the complete conquest of Donbas. When in a few weeks the tanks start to arrive leopard from the West – among other promised weapons – Filimonov and his men promise change military tactics, go on the offensive and launch a counteroffensive to the east to expel once and for all to the Russian occupiers.
the much advertised Russian push from the province of lugansk to comply with the Kremlin’s wishes to subdue the two eastern Ukrainian provinces ahead of the first anniversary of the war here is materializing in the form of armored outposts that, for the moment, they are not achieving substantial changes in the front line. A few days ago “they tried to enter with five tankswe destroyed two and the rest withdrew,” Filimonov cites as an example. “The front lines move at most 100 meters to one side or the other, there are no changes,” he insists. The commander, barely 28 years old, although with a long history as a combatant, as well as a personal friend of the filmmaker Oleg Sentsovimprisoned by Russia for five years After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, he says that as soon as the promised tanks arrive, his attitude and that of his men on the battlefield will be very different and they will be the ones who will take the initiative.
The Gonor group is here facing “three types of enemy units”. On the one handsoldiers of the regular armyon the other, mercenaries of the wagner group and finally airborne troops. Confronting regular soldiers is, in his opinion, the “easiest” task, since they apply “to the letter what is written” in the Russian military manuals and are very predictable. “First they bombard with artillery, then they try to advance with tanks and finally they launch the infantry,” he enumerates. Instead, the paramilitaries of the group commanded by Yevgeny Prigozhina convicted ex-criminal turned into an oligarch and whose head has put a price on the American FBI, are “much more skilled,” he reports. “They act in small groups and launch night raids, they barely use armored vehicles, which are an easy target for us,” she added. Still, she faces the next few weeks with a moderate optimism: “if they do not do more (the Russians), it is that they cannot”.
comatose economy
The Russian offensive has left the economy of the Donbas districts still in the hands of the kyiv government in a comatose state. Respectable-sized cities like Kramatorsk, which even after 2014 had managed keep up the activity and avoid mass flight despite the proximity of the war in the surrounding region, currently they can barely maintain the pulse of the day. During the long winter nights, the streets are plunged into darkness and lights are barely visible emerging from the windows. The curfew is stricter than in cities located further away from the fighting.
Large cities such as kyiv or Kharkov are recovering a certain ‘war normality’ while Ukrainian society is progressively erasing the vestiges of Russian culture
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On the other hand, in large metropolises such as kyiv either Kharkivwho in the early stages of the war felt the breath of the armored columns launched from the other side of the border, coming to be heavily bombed, have recovered a kind of war normalitywith restaurants and open premises and even showing their streets heavy traffic at some peak times, they have once entrenched themselves in recent months as the great rearguard bastions for the Ukrainian state. The population generally remains more challenging than everafter checking for the last few 12 monthsthat his Army has not only been able to stop the blow and stop the occupiers, but to make them go back, increasing their faith in the chances of victory. “We cannot stop; we have to continue fighting, it is the only option when they want to annihilate you as a country,” he maintains. Tatiana Stawnychypresident of the Ukrainian section in an international NGO.
For many years Ukraine seemed hopelessly divided between the pro-european west and Ukrainian and the East pro-Russian and Russophone. This gap, during the last year, seems to have completely disappeared due to the aggression launched by the neighboring country 365 days ago. Many inhabitants even refuse to speak Russian with foreigners despite being their mother tongue, preferring English, and there is only a debate between those who would support an eventual Stop the fire and who don’t “There are no longer pro-Russians; the discussion is between those who prefer keep fighting and those who bet on a bad peace“, a euphemism used by an anonymous taxi driver from Dnipro to define any agreement that his government can reach with the Putin’s Russia.