Report
A few kilometers from Severodonetsk, pro-Russian separatist forces display their optimism
Audio 01:46
Paper of surrender launched by the thousands by Russian and pro-Russian forces, May 22, 2022. © Anissa El Jabri/RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
Almost three months to the day after the start of the special operation, as the Kremlin says, the redeployment of Russian forces and their equipment on the ground in Donbass seems to have been completed.
The fights are intense.
In the line of sight of Moscow, the two locks of Severodonetsk and Lysyschansk.
Report a few kilometers away, in Roubinjeh, alongside pro-Russian separatist forces in the Luhansk region.
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With our special
correspondent Anissa El Jabri
These are thousands of small rectangles of 10 centimeters by 5 which are launched every day on the cities that the Russian and pro-Russian forces seek to conquer.
On these little pieces of paper, several lines.
Among them: “
Soldiers and officers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces!
Your 24th Brigade headquarters has been destroyed.
Your commanders have fled, your ammunition has also been destroyed.
No one can help you anymore.
If you continue to resist, you are doomed to die.
Your only choices are to flee or surrender.
Zelensky betrayed you, just like he did with the Azov fighters who surrendered without glory.
Follow our instructions on the back of this paper.
Follows instructions for surrendering, hands up, gun barrel down.
The missiles that send the papers to the cities.
© RFI/Anissa El Jabri
"
It's coming very soon
"
Nobody in sight this Sunday, and yet the intensity of the fighting is visible everywhere: anti-missile missiles in the plains, column of black smoke above Severodonetsk visible for about twenty kilometers around.
In Roubinjeh, a handful of kilometers as the crow flies from this town, a commander, his features drawn by fatigue, his speech slow;
but on taking control of the city, his conviction is made: “
It will be very soon, I think.
To be more precise, a few weeks at most.
The takeover of cities will be done in this order, first Severodonetsk, then Lyssychansk.
Then Kramatosk and Sloviansk.
»
And after ?
The officer lets out a weary sigh.
"
Then we wait for orders
," he says.
Then he lifts his pants and shows a bandaged calf and ankle.
The day before, a few meters from this building courtyard where a Russian NGO is working, he was injured by a missile burst.
A few tens of seconds later resonate strikes.
Civilians are ordered to return to the bomb shelter immediately.
Distribution of food aid in Roubinjeh, May 22, 2022. © RFI/Anissa El Jabri
Roubinjeh cut off from the world
Spring-green plains, sometimes peasants who cultivate them, often empty expanses where cannons and anti-missile missiles nest.
When you move towards Severodonetsk from the east, not everything is destroyed but the imprint of Russian and pro-Russian forces is everywhere.
In response to "slava ukraina", the rallying cry of the forces opposite, tagged on a wall a "slava lnr", named after this other republic of Donbass at the head of the fighting.
At the entrance to Roubinjeh, only military trucks or vehicles marked with the Z for “special operation”.
The few former employees or retirees of the paper mills or chemicals outside circulate on foot or by bicycle.
When boxes of humanitarian aid from a Russian NGO arrive, people rush from basements or apartments.
First out, first served, and nothing more for those who arrive too late.
Here we are often hungry and we are always cut off from the world.
"We don't know anything, the radio isn't working, there's no television, no internet connection,
" said a woman.
We don't know anything about what happened in Mariupol, in Lysychansk.
We don't know anything.
»
«
Sometimes the soldiers can drop a few words here and there, and that's our only source of information,”
retorted a man.
"
I think it's the same everywhere in all cities,
" continues the woman.
Nothing good is happening.
They took Rubinjeh and now they are heading towards Severodonetsk.
They want the Donbas republics to be part of Russia.
I don't think we can expect anything good.
The man
signals to his wife to be quiet.
Around this retired couple, we hurry, often with shifting eyes, and when we ask where the other inhabitants have gone, a small half, we concede here, are no longer in the city.
Heavy silence...
The city of Roubinjeh, May 22, 2022. © RFI / Anissa El Jabri
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