The tank moves into position to shell targets in the village of Urozhaynoye, the so-called Vremyevsky salient. Here everything is done quickly.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
The collection tanks run almost non-stop, I just got to the charge and refuel cycle. It’s thirty minutes. I am waiting for a promotion to positions, and I drink such bitter coffee that I do not even feel the specific taste of steppe water. There are endless fields all around, gently rolling hills and rare green threads of forest plantations. There is a chain of stakes and dams with dry pools that have turned into swamps – natural barriers that were taken into account when creating positions. In the end they formed the so-called Vremievsky ledge. This is what this section of the front is called in common language.
One of the commanders of the OBTF “Kaskad” with the call sign “Doc” treats me with caffeine. We talk about the man, about our bald heads, looking for advantages. For example: “I cleaned it with a damp dish sponge – it’s done, the cost of the shampoo is the net profit.” I tell the story of how the sniper Deka gave Yulia Chicherina a bald cat of the Sphynx breed. The cat, seeing me for the first time in his life, abandoned all his business, raised his clothes to his shoulder and began to lick my bald head.
– How I met my relatives! -“Doc” she summarizes her enough and runs the palm of her hand over the skull.
I ask about the situation in Novodonetsk, it is there that the unit is stationed, where I hide from the heat. “Doc” comments, as it seemed to me, rather:
– Booth puts it mildly! Still researching endlessly, we have a “… (c’mon-ed.) – special team.” We put mines. I have a fighter, I delivered 170 pieces in one day, this is one of the existing ones. What kind of attacks are there in such dense minefields?
The tank turret is “reinforced” with chains; in theory, they will not allow an RPG grenade to hit the turret’s shoulder strap, the most vulnerable spot not covered by active protection containers.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
We say that the SVO suddenly made unexpected discoveries in military affairs. The first is drones. And the second, the mines, which lately have been clearly underestimated. But the tanks… I realize this may be the last conflict with so many of them. “Doc” disagrees, but at that moment the tankers call. Waiting at the collection point.
“BRILLIANT ARRIVAL”
The commander with the call sign “Kalash” very competently and accurately indicates to us the point for filming the work of the tank – “at a distance, relatively safe.”
He warns that everything must be done very quickly so as not to fall into return fire. He jumps into the tank and immediately disappears into clouds of poisonous yellow dust. On the one hand, this dust is clearly visible to the enemy, on the other hand, it is absolutely impossible to understand what is happening there.
Shooting tanks firing in the August heat is kind of…cool. The fighters from the nearest position looked at us with slight sympathy and, to reassure us, told us where and where they were flying here. And how long ago this (of course, “before your arrival”).
I filmed and counted the shots from the tank, knowing in advance that no one completely emptying the “carousel” (as tankers call two devices in slang – “autoloader” and an ammunition rack with shells – ed.) would completely devastate . There are 22 shells, but the tankers say that if you want, you can put forty pieces. But after 12 shots, an observer’s car drove past us, then it did not leave the shelter, but a tank jumped out, and we chased it to the base.
The tank reaches the coordinates that the reconnaissance plane revealed: these are underground bunkers in a forest plantation on the outskirts of Harvest.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
A truck quickly jumped out, just as quickly they unloaded it and began to prepare the casings to put them in the tank, taking them out of the tubes. Gunner “Crutch” personally replaced several fuses and took a deep breath. He asked about the targets his tank hit.
– We demolished houses in Urozhayne, where the Ukrainian troops were entrenched. Often these are simply trenches and dugouts. Gunners correct helicopter fire. I don’t think those who went to Urozhaynoye had fun… Everything flies to them. I see no reason for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to sit there and “catch art”. You listen?
And I listen. I can clearly hear another half-ton aerial bomb being dropped on this crop; cannot be confused with anything.
Fire is fired at a specific shelter, made in the likeness of a Bandera hideout, complete with a disguised trapdoor. After impact, RPG gunpowder caught fire in the hideout.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
– Remember your most successful fight.
– About the storming of Novodonetsk. We repulsed the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they tried to break through the field to the village. Then we shot down two armored vehicles that were trying to evacuate the Ukrainian attack planes. They just ran into an armored car, lay down next to the second, but he also did not leave this field …
– Does the answer come to you often?
“Crutch” gets serious:
– Otherwise, here you will not guess. The most unpleasant thing was when the “Grad” hit us, not with packages, but with individual packages; besides, there was little good. I will say this, of all those who flew at us, it was the brightest: one lay down about 20 meters from us, we began to move away, another from behind did not fly or we did not catch up. There were kamikaze drones, but they were lying somewhere nearby.
The tank returning from the positions is immediately reloaded and refueled; you should be ready to join the battle in a matter of minutes. The enemy is within our grasp.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
TALK IN THE TOWER
But in the tank it turned out surprisingly cool. No, they haven’t installed air conditioners yet, but the ventilation works fine. The commander with the call sign “Kalash” turned out to be from Krivoy Rog. He arrived in Donbass in 14, fought in a tank until 16. And then he returned to the front on February 22, 2022. Two days before the start of the SVO. I understand that my interlocutor has nowhere to go back, only forward, and there was a good reason in his life why he chose such a difficult path. And others did not choose and now go on to “meat assaults.” Because? Kalash explains:
– I did not understand how they can forbid me to celebrate May 9 and speak Russian? And who? I believe that “Ukrainianism” is an artificial nation and for a long time, since childhood, I thought so. Then I analyzed and understood why many of my classmates at the university became Ukrainians. And they have already grown up with this myth, with this literature. They were re-educated. I `m 36 years old…
The tank commander with the call sign “Kalash” came to counterattack in 14 from Krivoy Rog; maybe now his compatriots are going to Harvest in “meat raids”.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
– All growth had to be “independent”…
– Yes, but the generation is a little older, they just did not have time to redo it. I studied at the “Russian school”, I think they have already closed it so that no one can define themselves as Russian with the help of the language.
I ask about the former fellow citizens on the other side of the front:
– How does the enemy feel there? I went to Harvest and what’s next?
– I don’t think you fully understand what’s going on around you. And in general, the Germans also took Smolensk. I do not help. But THEY need to show their viewers something, here: they took Harvest. The owners who paid for this war are also happy, they probably do not understand at all what is happening here. I hope that they will still start to surrender en masse, because the losses are simply colossal. Also, they changed tactics.
T-72 ammunition – 22 shells, but the tankers told the military commander of the KP that, if he wished, they could load 40 units.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
– As?
– We started to save equipment by assaulting unsupported infantry. The infantry on the street can be assembled, sick and bowed, and the equipment is expensive. The helicopter guys said that two or three weeks ago, the fields near Harvest were just strewn with corpses. With any offensive of the enemy, at least somewhere, a little, but he will go ahead. Ok let’s go. Not a single entire winery was left at Harvest. They are paying with their lives for this media victory.
https://www.kp.ru/share/i/4/2637795/wr-960.jpg
SCORPIO AND ITS TERMINATOR
After the heat, we stopped at the “field field” of the “Doc” unit – just a secluded ray in the steppe. On the right – small arms targets, on the left – skeletons of burned-out cars. These are targets for grenade launchers. And a green forest plantation, where at that time a group of guys moved. A few days ago they were removed from the front, let them catch their breath, washed and sent to the landfill. In truth, whoever wants to study military affairs will always find where, how and when.
In front of the “Cascade” fighter with the call sign “Pale” is your favorite machine gun and the “Terminator” ammunition supply system “Scorpio”. In the backpack – 500 rounds.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
“Casper” is only 23 years old and has been fighting since May 2022. In the autumn, he was injured during the first assaults on Ugledar. He pulls up his ski mask and shows the scar. A fragment from a 120mm mine pierced his muscle and skin, pierced him, but his jaw survived. He says that about a week ago, specifically in Novodonetsk, the enemy calmed down.
– Are you chasing the enemy or are you going alone?
– I think they’re leading them. They don’t like to face us head on. They follow the armored vehicles. As soon as the first mine falls, they fall back. We are still doing well with mining, we will keep our town until the end.
This is the “home” training camp of the Doka division. Whoever wants to, will always find a place to learn military science. Even if the front is within reach.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
Everyone at the shooting range gathers in front of the firing point. A fighter with the call sign “Pale”, in front of his eyes receives a new call sign “Terminator”. Behind him is a satchel with 500 rounds of ammunition. Another 50 pieces in a case covered with a canvas; it is already attached to the PKM machine gun (modernized Kalashnikov machine gun – author’s note). This product is called “Scorpion” and is a gift from volunteers. They explain to me that our people have already used the Scorpion during the battles for Mariupol and it was a successful experience. Starting at about 50 meters, the machine gunner begins to suppress everything that moves in his field of vision, covering the assault group. And 550 rounds is a lot. “Pale” – “Terminator”, it’s good that you shoot a hundred, running now across the field.
“Pale” is satisfied with the experiment, sorting out short fragments of an empty tape.
The only shelters in this direction are forest plantations. And they also need to be able to fight.
Photo: Dmitry STESHIN
– Do you have any idea who is attacking you? What age?
– Documents found. These are mobilized older people. Someone worked on the railway, someone at the factory. The average age is 45 to 50 years, but young people are also found. Ordinary people.
– Didn’t you think why they attack you? From time to time?
– I understand that the mobilized do not feel like going to battle, I don’t know how, but they force or convince. If possible, they surrender. It happens that they simply leave their positions, they do not want to go for meat.
Conversation and classes are interrupted very quickly – a wall of dust of dark yellow color is approaching us on the entire horizon and at a height of 500 meters. Even the artillery fell silent, the observers planted their “birds”, for sin.
There is neither good nor bad weather in Donbass. Everything is extreme. Or poisonous dust or knee-deep dirt. And the people here are just as irreconcilable, especially the younger generation. Some grew up under Bandera and independence, others – during the war. And it’s easy to guess who is who. Those who are in favor of Bandera and try to cling to Urozhaynoye now have an hour’s respite. Let them say that thanks to the harsh climate of Donbass, this is the only thing they can count on here.
*OBTF “Kaskad” – Operational combat tactical formation, created in 2017, deployed and reinforced in 2022. The main tasks are assaults. Subordinated to the Ministry of the Interior.
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