Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
Commentary by Russian military correspondent Dmitry Steshin
by Dmitry Steshin
[KP] The second week is the massive destruction of the energy infrastructure of Ukraine. The military correspondent of KP.RU tried to find out - what do people in Donbass think about this, for whom the village transformer is the main goal of Ukrainian artillerymen since 2015?
"WILL YOU GO THROUGH THE WAR?"
When it became clear that Russia would not back down until it deprives Ukraine of energy, a miracle happened. Residents of Ukrainian cities sitting in baths and basements during the shelling, who had long cursed their relatives and friends from the Donbass, suddenly began to write to them in instant messengers, complaining about our cruelty and heartlessness.
As in the old joke about a lawyer: "I ask for indulgence for my client, because having killed his parents, he became an orphan." They were answered like this: “You are probably shooting at yourself somehow inaccurately, aim better.”
This phrase has been a pillar of Ukrainian propaganda since 2014, even from Slovyansk - “they fired on themselves.” But, for some reason, the Ukrainians themselves now reacted to it nervously, with curses. My comrade, military officer Zhora Medvedev, who lives in Gorlovka, instead of verbal discussions, he simply sent his offended interlocutors his pictures and videos of the consequences of Ukrainian shelling, with blood ...
And Zhora has whole gigabytes of this, just for the last year. I remember well how Zhora's son was born in August, and the Gorlovka region, which was considered calm, suddenly began to be shelled by Ukrainian troops. And he did not understand - what to do, start lining the house with sandbags or take the family to Russia? I remember his confusion, you don’t wish this on anyone ...
So, we listened to the opinion of the Ukrainians, it did not surprise us. But it was important to find out: how do people from Donbass, who have been living in hell for almost 9 years, look at what is happening now in Ukraine? With satisfaction? Schadenfreude? Sympathy?
Voenkor Medvedev agreed to become my guide through the gloomy world of Gorlovka and neighboring villages. Just in case, I decided to clarify the path. Zhora asked:
- Will you go through the “war” or take a detour through Yenakiyevo?
A part of the Donetsk-Gorlovka highway has been under enemy control for many years, only a 20-kilometer section is ours, but "is under fire." Jora recalled:
- Yesterday, near Panteleymonovka, I missed the arrivals for 30 seconds. The video is in my cart. Saw?
I saw, but I went as fast as possible. I thought along the way that it makes no sense to drive, because you don’t know at what point your car will meet with a projectile. You can “run into” this projectile or, conversely, not reach the place of arrival. You drive like this, and then you don't understand why your armpit hair is gray. Zhora called me when 140 meters were left on the navigator to his house. He was alarmed:
- Where are you? Now they reported that the road was shelled.
But, I was lucky, as were a dozen cars that, together with me, tried to slip along this damned road to Gorlovka or back.
POTATO, SEA OF BLOOD AND UAZ
Zhora finally got a four-wheel drive pickup, bought by readers and participants in his humanitarian mission. The three past cars he bought with his own just died one after the other. 50 delivery points in 2-3 days, no metal can withstand these Gorlovka roads. But, with the new car, Zhora immediately had some completely biblical and bright story:
- When it was being driven from Moscow, cooling pipes burst on the highway, the fan was torn off, and it broke through the radiator ...
I nodded sympathetically, imagining the scale of the disaster. The car was put in for repairs in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky. The master constantly called, asked for money for this and that, and the amounts were not very large. I understood everything about this story. Muddy car service at the highway, "bred", a classic plot.
- That's what I thought, - said Zhora. - I was going to go to rescue the car. But then the master called. And he says: “The repair was delayed, let me give you an UAZ, in excellent condition, and then you will give it to the soldiers to the front!”.
I already grunted in shame for my thoughts, you can imagine what emotions Zhora went through ...
We went to the supermarket, bought a simple set of products for a family of three. We plunged and Zhora remarked: “Usually I already put on my armor here.”
Dressed, but put the helmets on your knees. We were expected in the village of Gagarin, where the front line is only a couple of kilometers away. Gorlovka, in addition to its historical core, is all of such settlements that arose near mines and factories. And all this stuff is surrounded by the front line. Zhora took on the role of a tour guide:
- Here, two 122mm BM-21 rocket artillery "Grads" fell on a penny near the store. This is where the electricians died. I was with journalists I knew, they all swaggered, because they saw just a sea of blood on the pavement, and they didn’t take off their armor anymore. And here they usually handed out humanitarian aid, on the bus ring, and then they shot him ...
- In line for potatoes. They handed out from the car and it was clear that there would not be enough for everyone. And grandfather Petya, a retired miner, came up to me and asked: “At least a little, a few pieces, I’ll cook for my grandson.” You see, he asked so much that it was impossible to refuse! Their grandmother is a nurse in surgery, recently retired. And the grandson lives with them, an excellent student!
For the thousandth time, I thought about the great injustice due to which people who worked honestly all their lives had such an old age. There is no one to ask about this, but there is someone to ask for this.
SURVIVAL MECHANISM
Grandson Sasha studied remotely, wrote some kind of essay. In the window of his computer, I read: "The customs of the Eastern Slavs." There are eight people in the class, you can’t walk especially around the village with friends. It's generally better not to walk far from the basement. It is noticeable to a prying eye that the boy is pale, he does not get the southern sun. Why?
The windows in this neat hut have been changed five times! Squeezed out by an explosive wave. The chickens stopped laying because of the shelling and this is the most distressing news, they got used to the rest as much as possible. I did not begin to obscure these people and immediately asked the question:
- What do you think about the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure?
Grandfather Petya was already excited:
- I will answer. You need to punch! Exactly the one that is used by the Ukrainian army. Turning off the power is a must. Bridges to beat, especially along the border with Poland. They are now fighting with foreign weapons! Yes, it will be hard. But nothing, we lived here for eight years without electricity, water and gas.
- So, they can survive it too?
- It depends on what. We know why we are standing here and living. For the sake of my father's memory, he was in a partisan detachment from the age of 14. And I'm his son. And again the same ones came to fight with us ...
Linda sympathetically clarified:
- I feel sorry for ordinary people, the rich immediately fled.
I did not specify that the same thing happened in the Donbass. It was stupid to ask why Lida, Petya and Sasha didn't leave. Why do people go to Gorlovka “through the war”? And so that THEY do not think that they are afraid. Well, in short, of course.
They didn’t let us go empty-handed, grandfather poured us an eggplant of homemade wine, sweet and bright red, like arterial blood. Zhora noticed that it was very handy, he would soon have his son baptized. I began to remember which of my friends and acquaintances had children recently. It turned out that a lot of people. Why? I explained:
- I was shown crowds of 10-12-year-old boys in the Republika Srpska, they were born immediately after the end of the civil war. The ethnic group, on the verge of survival, turned on defense mechanisms.
VACANT POINT IN SIGHT
The village of Golmovsky was a memorable place for me. From the very beginning of the war, I kept waiting with horror and humility when, after the shelling, people would start throwing themselves at journalists and blaming them for all the troubles. I knew it was inevitable. In the summer of 2015, Ukrainian artillery seriously "engaged" in the seven thousandth village. I arrived early in the morning, after a night shelling, and found myself in the center of an angry crowd, moreover, exactly half were “for journalists”, and the rest shouted: “Let them sit with us under shelling!”. As a result, when I offered to come and spend the night in Golmovsky in the basement, they waved their hands at me:
- What are you, boy! Why! What if something happens?
At the entrance to Golmovskoe Zhora shows me a local landmark - a transformer box. Favorite target of Ukrainian artillery. The booth got hit so many times that its walls, indestructible "Stalinist" masonry, began to disperse. The old administration of the village was also methodically gouged. She moved to the pompous Palace of Culture. I was in it in February, at a concert by Yulia Chicherina (and yesterday Putin awarded her the title of Honored Artist of Russia. - Ed.).
Now in the ancient portico there was a gaping hole from a shell, and gloomy peasants were cutting glass, preparing the building for the cold. Citizens were drawn to the Administration - humanitarian electric heaters were given out there. Golmovsky has chic buildings - neat two-story houses with bay windows. According to legend, they were built by captured Germans, in fact it was just a trophy project. One could be comforted: Golmovsky looks like a medieval town, but I didn’t see houses with whole glass and roofs. The administration told me:
- There are houses where only one person lives. It makes no sense to connect such a house to heating, so we issue a heater. And privileged categories too. Russian production, by the way!
I sat down near the heaters and immediately met my reader, who has subscribed to Komsomolskaya Pravda all her life, a pensioner and former librarian Valentina Grigoryevna. He asked about the shelling of Ukrainian infrastructure:
"That's not right," said the librarian suddenly.
- What about ordinary citizens? They didn't start this war.
- Well, but you are also not guilty and for almost nine years ...
But, Valentina Grigorievna stood her ground:
Yes, it's not our fault either. It's just that there are a lot of Russians here, and this explains the attitude towards Russia.
I did not expect that I would meet in this terrible place an exemplary, philanthropic intellectual, capable of enduring without embittering, without being guilty. But that was the only such opinion.
The head of the village, Elena Khodusova, told me for a long time how Golmovsky lives in the sight.
The head of the village, Elena Khodusova, told me for a long time how Golmovsky lives in the sight. That she no longer remembers how many times and when she flew to the Administration, how two landscaping workers died on the Alley of Heroes. How many years, composed of months, they had no light. And the opinion of a man from the front:
- The shelling of Ukraine does not please me at all. You see, even the most fierce enemy cannot be wished for evil. But we live in such conditions. Therefore, let them live the same way as we do - this is my wish. They don't think they're doing us harm, do they? They think they are doing a noble deed, "liberating" us. Let them stay in our place.
Elena Dmitrievna was wrong about one thing - it is difficult totake the place of the Golmovites. In Ukraine, ours are hitting the infrastructure, but Golmovsky is simply being beaten "in the squares."
Elena Dmitrievna was wrong about one thing - it is difficult to take the place of the Golmovites. In Ukraine, ours are hitting the infrastructure, but Golmovsky is simply being beaten "in the squares." “A shell will find a separatist,” the inhabitants of Ukraine wrote quite recently to their liberated non-brothers. Now they don't write anymore. There is no light yet, and when it appears, now it depends only on them.
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