Ukraine residents say goodbye to their homeland: 'The Donbas is lost, no matter which army wins'
The Ukrainian army seems no match for Russian violence in the Donetsk province, which is hemmed in on three sides. Lucrative for Russia, the area no longer seems to be, as its industry has been almost completely destroyed after eight years of war. Far behind the front lines, an excavator draws a deep, dark chasm through the rolling fields of the Donbas. The trench lies even behind Kramatorsk, Slovyansk and Bakhmut, cities that the Ukrainian army has complete control over. The army is already reckoning with their fall. Most residents in the Donbas are giving up their native land, having lived for eight years in the vicinity of the war. 'Residents want to leave, they know what's coming,' says a volunteer from an evacuation team, as he escorts people with bags to the only functioning train station.
The Russian army has begun attacking Donetsk province from three sides, after capturing the last part of Luhansk province last week. Ukraine still controls just under half of Donetsk province. If that is lost, Russia will occupy the entire Donbas. But what is there left for Russia to occupy, other than hills with gorges? According to President Putin, the "special operation" revolves around "the liberation" of Russian-speaking residents of the Donbas. But there are hardly any people left. At a bombed-out square in downtown Kramatorsk, a woman in a summer dress displays the harvest of her vegetable garden, but there are few buyers. Stores are closed, on sidewalks anti-tank crosses stand ready. Only old Lada's drive through the deserted streets - everyone with a more expensive car has left.
'I always thought I would die here, I already knew which cemetery I would end up in,' says Gennady Alekseevich, who is leaving Donbas after 76 years. The former driving instructor for heavy industry truck drivers in the Donbas is saying goodbye to his native region along with Masha, a cat he carries in a bag. 'Hang on, Masja, you have to hang on,' he whispers to the cat as he waits in the warmth for a train to the west. While the people leave, the resources stay behind. Since the 19th century, the Donbas has been an industrial area that smells of coal and chemical fumes. Gray pyramid-shaped hills of mining stone rise high above the fields with factory pipes. But lucrative Donetsk province doesn't seem to be Russia's business. Its industry is badly damaged after eight years of war. Back in 2020, a group of economists estimated that 21 billion euros would be needed for repairs, and that was before the devastation of the artillery war that Russia began in February. After the destruction of colossal factories, such as the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, the same fate threatens industrial buildings in the area that Russia is now attacking. Forty sites were attacked on Saturday, the Ukrainian military states. In the village of Chasiv Yar, at least 15 people were killed that day in a rocket attack on an apartment building. In Avdiivka, a large coking plant was shelled more than ten times. On Friday, Russian explosives hit a power plant in Svitlodarsk.
'We are doomed here,' says 77-year-old Anatoli Ivanenko, one of the last stragglers in the town of Siversk, where the bombs have been falling for weeks. 'The Donbas is lost, no matter which army wins.' From the town, you can see the clouds of smoke rising from the front. A little outside Siversk, an oil refinery caught fire several times from shelling until the Russian army took the complex and moved a little closer still. There are still unharmed companies left in Donetsk province. Near the village of Soledar is the largest salt mine in Ukraine. In Bachmoet there is a winery from the time of Stalin, with 13 million bottles of sparkling wine under the ground. And Kramatorsk boasts the near 100-year-old NKMZ, in its own words "the largest machine building factory of customized products in Europe. But even if these companies survive a Russian offensive, they will not be able to offset the devastation in the Donbas.
In the Donbas, Putin does not seem to care about people or money, but simply about land. He hinted at his imperialist ambitions last month at the celebration of the 350th anniversary of Peter the Great's birth. Putin compared himself to the 17th-century tsar and said that, like Peter the Great, he has the right to "take back" "traditionally Russian" territories. Russia's capture of the Donbas is not a certainty. Ukrainian President Zelensky said last week that heavy weapons from the West are finally functioning "at full capacity" on the front lines. The Ukrainian army said it destroyed numerous Russian ammunition depots in recent days. The Russian military says the battle for Donetsk province will become more intense in the coming period. Russia has time in Ukraine, Putin said last week. 'Everyone should know that we haven't even really started yet.'
https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-ach...wint~b34362af/