“We receive scores of injured every day, just like in the summer”
“How are things going at the hospital during the truce? Are there fewer wounded?” I ask Yaryna Chahovets, also known in Kharkiv as ATO Nurse, who founded an eponymous NGO. “We receive scores of injured every day, just like in the summer. There are very badly wounded soldiers. Yesterday, a young man lost a leg, it had to be amputated... What truce are you talking about? They still keep on shooting. It is bad people don’t know about this, they think fighting is over and have stopped sending money to volunteers’ accounts. And our wounded are even out of underwear, let alone warm clothes, which we desperately lack.”
There are children’s drawings and letters to the troops in each ward. Oleksandr, a middle-aged patient, says that soldiers use these drawings as charms, put them inside their helmets and bulletproof vests, because they believe in their magic power.
There are three soldiers from near the town of Shchastia, Luhansk oblast: Yosyp, Oleksii, and Artur. Artur Shepelenko, 23, is a machine gunner from Kupiansk, Kharkiv oblast, he arrived here several days ago. He joined the army on March 3, when he realized the country was in danger. Before that he used to work at various enterprises in Kharkiv and Bila Tserkva. He was immediately sent to the 92nd mechanized brigade in Bashkyrivka, where he underwent training. And on September 6, he was sent to the front line near Shchastia. He says that Ukrainian troops are defending their positions under continuous fire of the enemy from the village of Vesela Hora. “Continuous fire is scary, only fools are not afraid,” Artur says. “They fire Grads, mortars. They also run up close to us in the greenery, we see them from our outposts through binoculars. Separatists mined the territory around the village, put trip-wire mines everywhere.” A company commander and a soldier were killed by such mine in the middle of September. Men think that Artur was lucky. During the night, a mine fell in a dugout where Artur was sitting, it blew up very close, could have killed him, but it only injured his leg with a splinter. Now the soldier has a second birthday and a long rehabilitation ahead. Artur says he is ready to continue fighting after the recovery. Soldiers do not think that hostilities will cease any time soon and expect a hard winter. “It is cold to sleep under a bridge and bathe in rivers even now. And it will be much worse in February. If not for volunteers, we would have been dead already. They help us with everything, such great fellows,” soldiers say. “From socks to furniture to computers, and even armored carriers, the whole army, everything depends on volunteers,” nurse Anastasia, who takes care of the wounded in the ward, joins the conversation.
Artur tells that it is hard to hold defense under constant fire, but they cannot fire back. “As soon as we open fire in return, OSCE representatives come over and prohibit to do it. It happened last time when I was under fire,” Artur remembers. The soldier says that his company was waiting for about two and a half hours under Grad fire. But after the first shots from the Ukrainian side, it was said over the radio transmitter that the OSCE representatives arrived and demanded to cease fire.
All soldiers assure they are waiting for an order to attack and think there is no other way to stop the terrorists. “What mood are we in? In a mood for combat! If we start attacking, we will kick them out in a month!” says Yosyp from Chernivtsi. The troops need new equipment and machinery very badly. “All the armored carriers are barely holding together,” Oleksii says. “Once during the training, it took us 11 hours to drive 70 kilometers to the border. The vehicles were breaking down every few kilometers. And we are a mechanized brigade, we have to be mobile. And now that it begins to freeze, it might be impossible to start the vehicles at all!” Troops at the front line need range finders, thermal imagers, communication equipment, optical instruments, maps. Now there is only one thermal imager for the whole company at the front line.
Soldiers are glad to receive books from Den and a photo album with already historic photos of the winter of 2013-14, when the processes of changes in the country were launched. They hope these changes will help to create a strong undefeatable army. At least, the human compound is already in place.
