Reportage
War in Ukraine: Donbass residents exhausted but resilient
Audio 00:23
Pensioners come to the car window of La Poste to collect their pension in Starodubivka, east of Sloviansk, June 15, 2022. © Cléa Broadhurst
Text by: Clea Broadhurst Follow |
Julien Boileau
5 mins
The Donbass region is now constantly under Russian fire.
Part of the population has had to flee, while other Ukrainians have decided to stay despite the difficulties they face on a daily basis.
Report from several places in the region, meeting these people tired of war but extremely resilient.
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From our special envoys in the Donbass,
The daily life of the inhabitants of Donbass is more and more complicated to live: the shortages accumulate and the Russian shootings approach.
About a hundred meters from the front, in the village of Starodubivka, people have run out of water.
“
We only have one well for our whole village.
There is no more water
,” said Kateryna, an elderly woman in her sixties who had come on foot to run errands in a dimly lit shop.
“
Everything is dry.
And we have no more electricity.
So we keep our food cool in the basement.
We will live here even without electricity.
What can we do there?
What I fear is winter, but I was born here and I will die here.
»
Since their withdrawal from the kyiv region and the northwest of the country, Russian troops have concentrated their efforts in the east of the country to take control of Donbass.
"
In the Donetsk region, the Russians have a lot more artillery, tanks, war machines
," says Maxime, a soldier who at the start of the war was on the country's southern front but is now stationed near Bakhmut, in the heart of Donbass.
“
If we compare the fighting in the Kherson and Donetsk regions, in Kherson it was a holiday.
In Kherson, when you fired once, the Russians fired once.
But in Donetsk, when you shoot once, you get ten times more shots.
»
We choose to stay
Despite the intensity of the fighting and the fact that they are getting closer to the big cities, part of the population has decided to stay.
“
We do humanitarian work and we know it's dangerous because we are targets for Russian forces.
But a lot of people stayed in Kramatorsk
,” Aleksander Ivanov, an aid worker in Kramatorsk, tells us, in front of the van full of food.
“
When we started, there weren't as many people, we gave to a hundred people a day.
But now we distribute 500 packets every day.
Many people came back because they had no more money and no place to sleep, so they came back home.
»
In front of this humanitarian center, dozens of people gathered at the opening.
Among them, Zoya is queuing with her friends.
“
Have you seen the prices in the shops and at the market
?
And we can no longer grow anything in our gardens.
We are no longer supplied with water or gas.
Nothing
!
She comes here once a month to pick up a small package containing food and basic necessities.
“
How do you survive in these conditions
?
We survive in these queues for help, we are all nervous, some are sick and we can't find any more medicine.
We don't get any money, not even our retirement pension.
»
Relentless bombings
In eastern and southern Donbass, the shelling has intensified so much that it is impossible to stay there.
“
Houses are on fire, people are dying, that's why we left.
It is no longer possible to stay there.
There's no water, no electricity, nothing
,” says Valentina, a seventy-year-old lady sitting in an evacuation train.
She left Avdiivka in southern Donbass with a heavy heart and tears in her eyes.
“
We hope we will come back because we left everything behind.
There is no longer anyone in the streets.
The bullets fly and whistle above our heads, the houses are in smoke.
It's horrible and I don't wish anyone to go through all of this.
»
In Pokrovsk, the last active station in the Donbass, evacuees arrive from all over the region.
They come with just a few bags, most of them having left everything behind.
“
It's pretty fun, isn't it?
It was starting to bother us to jump non-stop in Seversk
, ”Tatyana quips in front of the train which takes her temporarily away from the fighting.
Cigarette in hand, she explains to us that she lost her sight because of the bombardments.
"
Jokes aside, I need silence and peace, I'm 56 years old.
It was like being in a disco all night.
But I will come home, even on foot, and I will live in a hole that I will have dug underground if necessary.
When the war is over, I'll come back and help rebuild my town.
Even though I'm blind.
»
To come back, to rebuild, but above all to live in peace, that's what everyone is now demanding.
© RFI
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