“Of course they’re coming,” says Maxim. “They are much more than us.”
They are dug deep into this dense eastern Ukrainian forest, not far from Slavyansk, and are part of Ukraine’s territorial defense – non-professional soldiers, most of whom enlisted in the early days of the Russian invasion in February.
Until now, they have avoided contact with the enemy, spending their days under camouflage nets, next to giant pyramids of bottled water. But every moment of every day they live with the clatter of artillery. Their wooded camp is regularly peppered with cluster munitions. Soon after CNN’s visit, a cluster strike seriously wounded some of the soldiers.
And although they are well equipped with the anti-tank weapons that proved so crucial in holding off the initial Russian invasion, these are not the weapons they need at this stage of the war.
“You can hear it,” says Maxim’s comrade, Mihailo, as heavy guns rumble in the distance. Like others in this story, he asked that only his first name be used for privacy reasons.
“For every one of our heavy shots, they fire 10 or 20. That’s because we lack artillery.”
The Donbass is where the conflict with Russia began in 2014. And after Ukraine defeated Russia’s attempt to decapitate the government in Kyiv earlier this year, the Donbass is once again at the center of the war.
Their enemy is advancing, albeit slowly. Further east, Russian forces have captured the industrial city of Severodonetsk and appear close to encircling Ukrainian forces in neighboring Lysychansk.
This puts pressure on the most important remaining population centers of Ukraine in Donbas – Bakhmut, Slavyansk and especially Kramatorsk. The Territorial Defense Unit is just one in a network of plugs that the Ukrainian military uses to plug gaps in its defenses.
If and when they have direct contact with the enemy, it will mean that the artillery has failed to hold back the Russian advance and Slavyansk is in real danger.
Mihailo peeks over the edge of the trench to show why his squad is stationed here. He waves to the road. “If a convoy comes,” he says, “our job is to stop it.”
The civilians they hope to protect are already and increasingly suffering from Russia’s onslaught.
The rockets drop their deadly cluster charges over apartment blocks, supermarket car parks and suburban houses. The bombs tear open windows and doors and anyone unlucky enough to be caught off guard.
Igor, in his late 30s, was one of them. He said goodbye to his wife on Monday and walked from their first-floor apartment in a Soviet-era building to the taxi he drives for a living. He never made it.
“I was standing here crying,” said Valentina, 76, his neighbor. “He was such a good man. His name was Igor. And my husband’s name is also Igor.”
The explosions scattered debris across her bed, and now her husband, a former builder, is cutting a piece of particleboard to cover a broken window above the door of their building.
“It’s very scary,” she says. “I cover myself with a pillow at night.”
Slavyansk bears the brunt of Russia’s advance from the north. In the south, Bahmut pays even heavier tolls.
Marina stands in the courtyard of her building, scraping glass that was shattered by a Russian bomb just hours before.
“We haven’t hurt anyone,” she says in agony. “We’re just people. My husband has worked in an ambulance for 45 years saving lives.’
There are mostly elderly people left on this street. Many sons and daughters have long since left, unable to persuade their parents to join them.
“We don’t have gas, we don’t have electricity, we don’t have water. But we just want the shooting to stop.”
Back in the forest, waiting for the Russian troops, Maxim says he often thinks about his pregnant wife, back in their hometown of Kharkiv, and their unborn son.
“We’re going to drive them out of here, and he’s going to know it: that we didn’t just stand here doing nothing. This is our land and they have no right to come here.”
Add Comment