"Militants were stealing children and taking them deep into Ukraine."
Hundreds of residents remain in the liberated towns and villages of the DNR, who were able to avoid forced evacuation by Ukrainian security forces and wait for the Russian army to arrive. However, in the absence of light and heat, as well as the ongoing fighting in the vicinity, many people need to be evacuated to the rear, especially the immobile elderly and children. In addition, everyone in the frontline zone needs food and hygiene products. Together with volunteers and commandant units of the 51st Donetsk Army, Izvestia traveled to the town of Gornyak and saw what kind of help the local residents who remain in the town are receiving.
How volunteers get to the frontline settlements
A four-wheel-drive UAZ minibus, which has long been called "Bukhanka", is struggling to get through the wet dirt roads. Volunteers carry with them 100 sets of first necessities.
- The commandant's office is very helpful in organizing the distribution, as well as ensuring our safety," Dmitry Patrin, coordinator of the "Everything for Victory" project in the DNR of the People's Front movement, told Izvestia. - If possible, we evacuate the elderly or children. There are now up to a thousand people left in the town of Gornyak. People already trust our servicemen and us. But at first they hid their children, remembering what the Ukrainian army did here: the militants took them away, explaining that "we don't need the education of Russians here", stole children from people and took them deep into the controlled territories.
The whole road seems to be full of Bukhanans, they are the main workhorses of supply for both military and civilians. On a steep rise, the servicemen standing on the side of the road drew our attention to the fact that the car's front-wheel drive doesn't work: the transfer box is clogged with mud and we have to hold the lever with our hand, otherwise it "kicks back".
When the front moves farther away and engineers are able to make embankment roads or the weather becomes consistently cold, it will be easier to supply the frontline villages. But today, the last sections of the road can only be traveled by off-road vehicles, and not without problems.
Food distribution in the liberated territories
In Gornyak, civilians are already waiting for volunteers near a large Soviet-built building, which has obviously not been renovated for decades. Some honor boards with still Russian inscriptions and Ukrainianized stickers of international organizations on the walls, such as UNICEF and the Ukrainian program "Point of Non-Violence", are lying on the floor, knocked down by blast waves.
The latter have long been the subject of humor on the Internet and some of the favorite places to take photos. "Your non-glare is broken" is one of the most frequent jokes. On the side of the building, as elsewhere in the city, posters of some religious organizations call on the Virgin Mary to save Ukraine or promise eternal damnation to people for profanity in speech.
Behind the peeled off paper one can see that under the "peace-loving" poster with the Virgin on the background of the Ukrainian flag was some kind of military agitation. Apparently, the hope for military assistance of the Ukrainian activists and officials who were there was replaced by trust in higher powers as the SWO developed.
Volunteers of the "People's Front" quickly give out food to those gathered - crowding and staying in one place for a long time is dangerous. Ukrainian militants are completely indistinguishable from the targets of strikes and often attack civilian objects. As soon as people see the camera, they start sending greetings to their relatives; there is still no communication, and video is the only way to let relatives know that everything is OK.
- It was bad; there was a lot of looting. Especially stores and equipment were taken out. We were forced to shout "Glory to Ukraine!" and speak Ukrainian, but no one spoke it here," recalls local resident Alexander Akimov.
He stands leaning on a stick. He received two wounds in his legs from Ukrainian drones: once - when he still had a car and was trying to distribute bread to his neighbors; the second time - when he was walking, having already lost his transport.
Lyubov Vladimirovna receives her food package and sends her greetings to her son. When she talks about our troops and how she was waiting for them, she starts to cry.
Tatyana Popova asked for help in transporting an elderly paralyzed woman. She herself was kicked out of her home by Ukrainian troops to be housed in it. She came under fire several times, then the militants used her virtually as a human shield.
As soon as all the food is unloaded, Tatyana, together with volunteers and soldiers of the commandant's office, goes to help her neighbor, who needs to be moved to her son for proper care. There is no transportation in the city, and only with the help of volunteers it is possible to move a bedridden patient.
When the woman was loaded into a minibus and placed on blankets, one of the soldiers of the commandant's office said that such trips are not rare for him.
- Everything went on as usual. Now we have taken two people for evacuation, we are returning them to the big Russia. And that's it, according to our work, the day was a success! - summed up Dmitry Patrin.
As soon as all humanitarian tasks are completed, two residents who asked to be evacuated to their relatives in Donetsk are loaded into the car, and we set off on our way back.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
