A few days ago, a Hymars flew into the Vostok temporary command post.
Photo: Dmitri STESHIN
DEFECTIVE “HAYMARS”
My arrival at the battalion location began with a sad and unpleasant mission. A few days ago a Hymars arrived at the Vostok temporary command post. I know well what security measures were used, I will not express them, but it still did not help.
According to what the head of the engineering service of the León battalion told me, there were two missiles. The first hit the building and destroyed the three-story flats. The second “Hymers” followed, fell strictly vertically, went into the ground, almost the entire length of the warhead and … did not work. A smiling and kind personnel officer with the call sign “Evil” died (call signs are often given on the contrary – correction note), just a couple of weeks ago Andrei gave me tea in this basement.
There could have been more victims, but the vaunted American technology failed.
Somewhere in the background, death abroad lurks, and you can’t leave it alone, only destroy it.
Photo: Dmitri STESHIN
– We don’t know how and when this projectile can work – Leon explains to me – who will reach it with pliers in playful hands, when peace is finally established here.
I agree with the sappers that I will shoot in the basement, but my duty is to shine a flashlight on them. And I light a candle while they assemble an intricate circuit from detonators and carefully lower a pile of mines into a vertical shaft. Somewhere in the background, death lurked abroad, and you cannot leave it alone, only destroy it.
The underground explosion was muffled, part of the building collapsed, dry concrete dust blew through the town.
Photo: Dmitri STESHIN
We retreat to the soldiers standing on the cordon, unwind the telephone cable. One of the sappers hands me a helmet, they say, put it on, the spread of debris cannot be predicted …
The underground explosion was muffled, part of the building collapsed, dry concrete dust floated through the town.
“BUY RUBBER BOOTS, DON’T HESITATE!”
I went further, to the guys who were supposed to go on rotation at Ugledar tonight. I did not leave empty-handed: in Rostov there is a group of volunteer girls, they call themselves “pharmacy fairies.” From them they gave me a box with the inscription “Bosyatsky suitable for Steshin and his friends.” There were pieces of lard wrapped with love and science in parchment, “Borodinsky” loaves, a set of sauces, cigarettes, lighters, a box of “hematogen” – for the prevention of colds. From myself, I reported several packages of the best coffee, and coffee is drunk here simply without stopping. In addition, there are many connoisseurs who understand the varieties and methods of brewing. Now it’s easy to do – “trench candles” and gas burners have long ceased to be exotic. As one of the fighters remarked to me: “There is little snow, but you can always scrape coffee, and I always have a burner and a mug in a marauder” (this is the name of a special bag for dropping empty magazines, collecting all kinds of ownerless, but useful or interesting gizmos – approximately corr.)
“Bosyatny fit”
Photo: Dmitri STESHIN
I found the legendary explorer “Fox” doing a meditative activity: tastefully (this is how aesthetes taste cigars), he was packing his backpack for a night out in rotation. He started the conversation with a stupid provocative question:
– Lis, is there a sense of celebration?
The fox weighed one of his backpacks, he did not like the weight and commented, they say, “holidays are always with me anyway.”
On February 23, Lis planned to celebrate as it should be for the defender of the Fatherland: on the front line. Fox addressed a few words to those who are now preparing in the training camp:
– Listen to everyone, absorb. See for yourself that the instructors do not “pour water”, they do not teach to stand on the shooting racks. Let them explain more about life on the front line. I want to say hello
– Easily.
– Hello to our medical training instructors. They talk about the “golden hour” (during which the wounded must be evacuated – corr. note). So we have at least four hours. Now I have to go to the positions of about 7 kilometers, I can not drive closer. So that there are no illusions, learn how to provide primary assistance to yourself and your comrades. In the last rotation, I met with the guys from Kamchatka, talked. I found out they didn’t know how to apply a tourniquet. As taught, but not learned. Yes, important. Let them buy rubber boots, don’t be shy!
– How is it heated?
– Trench candles, gas burners. If the entrance is covered with a blanket or raincoat, and it’s minus ten outside, it will be +1 inside and it even seems hot, almost hot.
Photo: Dmitri STESHIN
“THE YOUTH HAVE BEEN KNOCKED OUT, THE PUNISHERS ARE IN POSITION”
The offensive near Ugledar has slowed down in the last week. Our people flocked to the so-called dachas on the outskirts of the city, hooked on them and rose in “active defense.” The fox, in a conversation, recalled that he only sees what happens in his sector on the front line. But he had a chance to talk to the Veseushniks prisoners taken the other day and what he said didn’t really fit in his head:
– I do not understand the behavior of the enemy. Captured reservists say that there are practically no young people in the trenches, they have been knocked out. I emphasize that she did not desert, but was knocked out. Average age 40 years.
– Why it happened?
– Young people are more active, the first one dies. This is from my observations: a Ukrainian shelter, a blocked gap with a loophole in our direction. Near him are the “eyes”, the observer. Here he is standing, leaning out of the ditch up to his waist. And he never once faced this. Either this is inexperience, or the conscious actions of the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are involved in the “loss of personnel.” I don’t understand.
– Do they have big losses?
– I have the general impression that they have been brought here recently for slaughter. There are no other explanations. What caught my attention in the stories of the prisoners. The word “punishers”. They used it themselves.
Soldiers of the “Vostok” battalion
Photo: Dmitri STESHIN
– In what context?
– According to them, it turns out that the “punishers” put them in position and take them out, those who remain are also “punishers”. In addition, the routes are built so that they do not cross, they are prohibited from communicating. Some they took out, others they brought.
– Some kind of nonsense, beyond logic. You take positions from the shifts, they tell you, like: “here we put signal mines, here are stretch marks, there, to the left, a machine gunner appeared, he works at night …”.
– It turns out that they are arrested and put in a well without explaining anything. Moreover, there were such options: he was caught on the street, four days later he was already near Ugledar, and a week later – a notice that he had died in the Donbass. I do not understand what task the Ukrainian command is facing: the extermination of the male part of the population? It turns out that way.
INSTEAD OF EPILOGUE
Of course, no one on the front line will celebrate Defender of the Fatherland Day, as they celebrated it in peacetime, sometimes forgetting its essence. But there were a few moments of sincere joy: when they sorted delicious gifts in the back and read aloud a warm letter from the “pharmacy fairies.” I do not know if there is a similar holiday on the other side of the contact line, most likely it has also been canceled as part of the “decommunization”. But they clearly know about our vacation THERE. At exactly 12 o’clock Donetsk was attacked by “Himers” and I finished the end of this report sitting on the floor, between the main walls. It fell very close, on Rosa Luxemburg street, right in front of the entrance to the music school. There was nobody there; after all, it was a holiday, and the children in Donetsk have been studying remotely for a long time. Three missiles were intercepted by our air defense, so the Center got by without casualties today. In fact, this is a very expensive gift for a front-line city.
