Underground Networks: How Logistics Facilities are Organized in the NWO Zone
As long-range weapons systems are developed to defend against them, much is changing on our home front. Troops need reconstitution points, training ranges, replenishment, storage facilities, and more. All this must not only be created, but also dispersed in case of strikes, protected in engineering terms and camouflaged. Izvestia learned about how the army bakeries, fuel and lubricants warehouses, canteens and barracks, located several meters underground, are arranged after visiting three brigades of the 51st Donetsk Army.
Underground bakeries
Everyone who served in the army knows that bread is one of the main products. And army bread has always been made according to special standards to ensure its long-term storage. Unlike its "civilian" counterpart, for example, sugar and some other ingredients cannot be added to it. In order to provide fresh bread to thousands of servicemen every day, there are military mobile bakeries, which have now become underground workshops in the DNR. We visited two such mini-factories, each of which, in less than a year of operation, accounts for hundreds of thousands of loaves of bread. And we must say at once that the bread has become much tastier than it was in the times of the People's Militia of the DNR.
In order to get to the bakery, you have to go down almost 5 meters underground through a camouflaged entrance. The walls are lined with wood, and work is going on all day long in the workshops: the products need to be prepared for the dark time, when the supply vehicles start moving around, gradually delivering food to the front line through several intermediate points. Here trucks come here, and to the front line bread will be brought by buggies and motorcycles.
- There, on the front line, the most important thing is bread and water, the bare minimum. I feel proud of our rear, when I was on the front line, it was very difficult. That's why I understand how in the rear we have to work for the benefit of our guys. I know how hard it is there, sleepless nights, and we work for the good of everyone here, too," Anatoly Teryoshin, a senior baker with the 132nd Brigade, explains emotionally. He himself began his combat career as a soldier on the front lines, and his superior presents him as a hero, although Anatoly himself is a bit shy. In April, the servicemen of the bakery started building this shop from scratch, and in May they were already fully operational and reached full productivity.
In the 110th brigade, the baker Maxim tells his story. He has been in his position since 2018, since the organization of similar factories in the DNR.
- I am a pastry chef by profession, I graduated from college. I worked in different cafes, restaurants, after that I decided to join the army and I am still serving. I am originally from Donetsk, from Petrovsky district, - says Maxim. Petrovsky district has been one of the most shelled districts in the republic since 2014, the ceasefire never came. Maxim went to serve in the brigade that stood on the southwestern borders of his hometown.
Major Roman Karpelyansky, head of the food service of the 114th Brigade, shows us how the food station is organized. Like all facilities, it is buried underground, and the demonstration begins with a descent down. There are two canteens in the premises: one for the rank and file and one for the officers. There is also a cooking shop with field kitchens and gas stoves, storage, washing room and so on. At a depth of 4 meters it is possible to provide food for more than 500 people.
- I graduated from the Volsk Higher Military School of Home Front. We were trained there, and here we apply all the experience that was passed on to us. In the course of the SSO, the deepening of the feeding points was added, of course," the major says. He has long served in the field of army supply and notes the changes that have recently taken place in the nutrition of servicemen.
What new products have been included in the military food ration?
- Our calorie allowance (in terms of calories) is the same as it was before the SWO. But we have introduced a lot of additions: mayonnaise, jams, mustard, horseradish, raw and semi-smoked sausages. If earlier we had canned meat in the field, now we have fresh meat and fish cooked in the fields, oil is issued, eggs are issued to the personnel. The food ration has become much more extensive. What a soldier used to buy in stores is now given to him," Roman lists in detail the changes that have led to improved nutrition. We try borscht and buckwheat porridge with beef - indeed, they have become much tastier. There are condiments and sauces on the table, which were not there before. And in the corner of the officers' canteen - microwave, kettle, tea, coffee and various small things for a quick snack. On the walls of both the soldier's and the officer's section are large televisions. Although if the station will work at full load and feed the personnel in several shifts, there will be no time to watch them.
Other necessary facilities are also located underground: living quarters with bunk beds, weapons rooms, and storage facilities. In one of the recently completed underground barracks in the 110th Brigade, the walls are decorated with photos showing the construction process from start to interior finish. A couple of corridors away from it, construction continues, and you can see the process in dynamics: rooms prepared by an excavator according to the plan are lined with wood, which is sawn and burned on site. The overhead is waterproofed, but in some places you can still see the knurling of logs.
Before the SWO, it was believed that three or four knurls could withstand a direct hit from a 152-mm shell, but now four or five knurls are used against HIMARS missiles, plus the dispersion of the rooms and the length of the corridors are also a defense. Warehouses, such as fuel and lubricant depots, are similarly located. The one we were shown in the 132nd brigade uses a small homemade platform on rails with a manual cable drive to lift heavy loads of oil and coolants to the surface.
A separate story should be told about the bathing and laundry complex of the Gorlovka residents. It is also underground, although there are mobile ones. Everything in it is designed for the convenience of those who arrived from the front line, so in the first room there are washing machines, boxes for clean and dirty. Those who lost some of their personal belongings during the rotation can temporarily use disinfected ones. Further - a washing room with hot water, a bathhouse and even a swimming pool.
- We have created conditions as close to home as possible, so that everyone can feel like a necessary person. We wash the battalion in a day, and then there are places to eat and live, everything is buried underground," explains the commander of the Material Support Company (MSR), a senior lieutenant with the call sign Eternal. He joined the militia in 2014, at the very beginning of the war in Donbass, and has served all these years, first in Gorlovka detachments and later in the brigade, going all the way from technician to commander of the RMO.
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