"The AFU looked at us as enemies, there were cases of reprisals against civilians"
Every day, evacuated civilians arrive at the transit centers of the DNR from the settlements of Donbas liberated by the Russian army. The main flow comes from the dense agglomeration of the Krasnoarmeysk district, and the fighting in this direction is fierce. The first thing the displaced people do is get to the TAC in Yasinovataya, where they live for several days or weeks, undergoing identification procedures. People who have just escaped from the epicenter of the battles are frightened, exhausted, confused, and hardly make contact. Some of them have found the strength to tell Izvestia about what they have experienced.
Together until the end
Sergey's family consists of six people. Wife, daughter, mother-in-law and sister of the wife with her son. The daughter lies on the bunk, pulling a blanket up to her eyes. "Still in shock," says the father. They come from a very small village between Selidovo and Krasnoarmeysk - only 40 people live on two streets. To be more precise, they used to live, but there is no one left.
- We are simple people, without loud ambitions, - Sergei tells me, sometimes interrupting and, it seems, comprehending the experience, they just four days ago got out of this scorcher. - For 11 years I worked on the railroad, almost seven in security at the mine. After 2022, I had to stay at home.
In the transit TAC, each person is provided with a bed and three meals a day free of charge
The reason is standard: the threat of getting into the Ukrainian army, explains the interlocutor. Three days after the start of the SVO, he received a call from the military enlistment office and was ordered to report to the recruiting station. He ignored it. Then people started coming to visit, but residents of neighboring villages informed each other immediately through a chain: "They are coming. Be careful!" Recently, the teams to catch reservists began to travel already in civilian cars in civilian uniforms. The locals sat underground like partisans.
- They were waiting for their own," Sergei says. - My wife and daughter refused to go anywhere. They said: "We'll be together until the end.
Many of the displaced people are in an exhausted condition
On December 3, advanced Russian units approached the village.
- We were most of all afraid of the AFU. They looked at us as enemies, as potential separatists," he says. - There were rumored cases of massacres of civilians. We were lucky: at our place they just took off and left. On the 4th, I heard a dog barking in the street. I went out and saw two military men checking our yard. They were standing with their backs to us, no identification signs visible, and, to be honest, I got a chill inside - I thought, well, this is the end. I hid knives and clubs in the house, just in case. Then the guys turned around - they had red paint on their sleeves (an identifying color of the Russian army - Izvestia) and small Russian flags on their helmets.
Support and participation
The Russians entered without a single shot or shell.
- It felt as if they were our own," the man stops talking, unable to hold back his tears. - It was like relatives you hadn't seen for a long time... Two of these guys were from the Perm region - Zhenya and Vitya. They stayed with us for four days until the evacuation. At the very beginning they looked at our documents and never came back to it. They ate and slept next to us. They left their weapons behind. They talked on the radio without hiding. The commander told them: "Treat civilians as delicately and politely as possible!" But there was no need to explain anything. It was heaven and earth compared to what it used to be. Also, there was no bitterness in them. In fact, they apologized to us. For the way things turned out...
The Russian attack planes came in small groups of two. Moving forward from point to point. The commander, monitoring the situation from the air, corrected each step: "Now to the next house, there take cover, prepare grenades, now do not go out, now you can...". Once Sergei and his family witnessed such negotiations over the radio - two Ukrainian soldiers decided to surrender. And then the commander himself got in touch with them and calmed them down: "Guys, do not be afraid. No one will beat you and even less kill you. Everything will be fine. We are of the same faith..."
On December 5, at night, Baba Yaga struck the house. We moved to the basement. And two days later an evacuation group arrived for the family. All the way to the desired point - 6.5 kilometers - the team leader, call sign Golden, distracted them with conversations - joking, laughing, not letting them fall into a stupor, give in to fear, and led the way. Sergei and his family were the only ones who waited for the Russians, the others, he said, just a little bit lacked patience ...
- I prayed all the way that they would make it. And we did," he says, covering his eyes again. - Everyone we met along the way tried to help in some way. Not once did anyone reproach us, not once was there a rude word. Only support and participation.
From house to house
Tatyana is a resident of Selidovo. For many years she worked at the mine, first as an electric welder, then as a signal operator in the shaft. She lived with her husband and son in a private house on Mikhailovskaya Street on the eastern outskirts. This is where the Russian army began its offensive.
- First they occupied the Korotchenko mine, not far from us. They sat there for a month and a half, poor things, without advancing. But then they began to take the city in a ring," the woman says. - One day I heard a pickaxe banging behind the fence, I went out and there were AFU soldiers installing a mortar at my neighbors' place. I asked: "Why are you doing this?" And they: "This is a convenient position for us." I came back and told my neighbors. My husband said: "Well, now we are like under a firing squad. The Russians will hit this square exactly." So we moved out. And later we learned that this mortar position had indeed been destroyed.....
Some people bring their beloved pets with them
We moved to Kuchurinskaya Street - to an empty house, already on the northern outskirts. But even there, the previous situation was exactly the same: the retreating AFU had set up a firing point nearby.
- And again we left. To the Solnechny microdistrict. There we also caught the entry of the Russian army into the city on October 29. And on November 2, a salute was given in the central square, - the woman shares. - The shelling of Selidovo after that, unfortunately, intensified. The tactic of the Ukrainian military is to destroy everything that the Russians have occupied, so that they have nowhere to live, to settle, so that they don't get anything. Our house on Mikhailovskaya Street suffered in this way. We were persuaded to evacuate. They said that it was still very dangerous, the Ukrainian armed forces would continue to hit us until we pushed them back.
A woman is looking for her missing wounded son - 44-year-old Alexei Rozdobudko
Get back on your feet
Artem, 37, is from Gornyak, 12 kilometers from Selidovo. His left hand is on a bandage, on the right a band-aid. A miner. He went to the territory of the DNR with his wife and relatives two weeks ago. He says that his last harness (shift) was in early September, then the AFU blocked the road leading to the place of work, and a period of time without work began. Artem and his family took refuge in the basement of the local college - they had to stay there for two months. A total of 20 people were hiding in the stone shelter.
- Every day I tried to walk home and feed my dog," the miner tells me. - But then the AFU soldiers announced: "Movement in the streets is forbidden. If we see someone, we will shoot him. Especially that guy running around with a bucket!"
Shakhtar Artyom (left) from Gornyak. He and his family had to spend two months in the basement
On the third floor of the technical school, he says, the AFU installed a mortar. Everyone living in the shelter realized that sooner or later the retaliation would come. And it came. The basement shook, the load-bearing slab bent, but it held. Everyone survived.
The Ukrainian military left the city, according to Artem, quietly and imperceptibly: yesterday they were still there, and today there was no trace of them. Two days later, the Russians came in - just as unexpectedly. They looked into the basement, asked to see documents and cell phones. Then they left three guys to help and went on with the mopping-up and assaults. When it got quieter and the front moved away, Artem and his men returned home - to the surviving summer kitchen. But, alas, they did not have to live there for long - on November 16, the AFU scattered cluster munitions over his street, pursuing the same goal - to scorch the land and deprive the Russian military of any shelter. Artem's arms, leg, side, one bone shattered. I turned to military doctors, who gave me first aid and recommended that I go to the rear for normal treatment. And then they helped him evacuate.
Sergei, 37, from Gornyak, came under cluster fire on November 16
Now he is slowly recovering. About plans for the near future he says: "To get cured. Find a job. And get back on my feet.
