Russia has arranged a training area near the town of Shchastye and tests here both weapons and guerrilla war methods.
We somehow call the line of demarcation as "peredok" (a front line). Presumably, this term was derived from the word "peredovaya" which has saved from the times of the Second World War. But our guide Valentin Tkalich calls it "nulyovka": "You see, there is the concept of the" plus "and" minus " depending on which side of the line you move. So, there is also "zero", or "null". The town of Shchastye located right up close to the Donets river may be rightly considered as "zero" level because the occupied territory is just across the river.
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"We do not stand idly, we work"
- The task of the battalion is the protection of public order, the countersabotage protection, and struggle against smuggling of goods into the territory outside the control of Ukraine, - in principle, it is all now.
The colonel is laconic, but hardly refers secrecy requirements. Or I have learned not to ask awkward questions? Although, nothing to do without them ... For example, it was impossible not to ask about the smuggling.
- The smuggling is carried out mainly on passenger transport with cargoes up to 500 kg. They transport food products, mostly cheese. Several times our people have caught drinks but it is in the Luhanskaya village somebody tried to carry that cargo on foot along the paths.
- Are there clashes with militants?
- Recently, there are no. They try not to shoot close to the settlements. If anything happens they do it mainly in dense foliage. Sometimes we come, work for an hour with the illegal transportation of goods, just leave that place and it is attacked with grenades.
- You stand together with units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine?
- We do not stand, we work. There are certain tasks that we carry out in full cooperation with the Armed Forces. We permanently feel presence of the enemy on our territory, almost every other day. Especially earlier when opponents prepared graduation in diversionary school - saboteurs passed examinations coming into our territory. Russia has arranged there a training area and tests both the weapon and methods of guerilla war.
CRANES
Last place of work before the war of colonel Gubanov is the head of police department in the Leninsky district of Luhansk. He was forced to leave the city, he says, in his pants and shirt. It is clear that he has a definite attitude to the militants:
- I'm not a military man; first of all, I'm a policeman and I do not know that there was in the minds of our management when we were given the command to get out of Pervomaysk when the town was practically ours. But a human being, I'll tell you one thing: to come back to the conditions that the occupant country dictate us is the same thing as a betrayal. Shake hands with these freaks who underhandedly killed our people ... In the Leninsky department, when there was not military actions, they plainly have shot two of our staff ... When I was in captivity and they communicated with me using a soldering iron and forced me out to be shot, what kind of friendship can be a conversation about?! If this goes I will just quit.
... The colonel has discussed with Tkalich what else can be shown: a bridge across the Aydar river, a dispensary with "Cranes" ... At the entrance to the dispensary of TPP there was a sculpture: three cranes welded from pieces of thick wire. That is, it is still there, just at the time of a shelling an explosion of a mine spun the sculpture at 180 degrees. Dispensary is located away from residential areas, probably due to this it's so nearly invisible.
PARADISE IN THE FRONT LINE
On the way to Stariy Aidar it happened to go along an endless concrete fence. "This is Golenko's manor, they say, about 50 hectares", - "Fox" told us.
The officer's name is Alexander; he is from Kiev district Troyeshchyna but he said he is not going to return to the capital. The man likes brotherhood in arms prevailing in the battalion. But maybe someone does not know who is Golenko? The former head of the Luhansk regional Board, a big fan of Muscovy and its rulers. He has done everything in his power to make Muscovy come to his home but afterwards for some reasons immediately fled to Kiev.
Visit to Valery Nikolayevich has not been stipulated, but a Russian projectile has made a "panoramic" hole in the concrete shell. The mansion could not be seen through the hole, but the sound dwelling for servants is seen well. I can competently say that miners of Luhansk region do not live as Golenkov's lackeys.
Shchastye and its surroundings are very different by their heavenly natural conditions from the place on the other side. The Donets river into which large (by local standards) Aidar river flows nearby; floodplain and planted forests, lakes, three large water storage basins ... Not coincidentally their banks were closely surrounded by regional level bosses. Although today they (the banks, not bosses) have been heavily overgrown with reeds hiding moorings for "cool" boats. But there is proud look in the surface of the lake of luxury mansions under the bright colored soft roofs...
Bridge over the Aydar river is destroyed, but the battalion craftsmen built the new, wooden nearby.
Under the bridge the river is teeming with fry. Ferrets in shiny coats calmly walked on the banks.
Herons float in the lake in addition to wild ducks; a little farther white swans glide on the water surface. But you continue: "War, war ..". War is only with the poachers: "Fox" told me that just the previous night they detained a "lucky fisherman" with a ton catch in his nets. In a word, an idyll ...
Mickhail Bublik, Severodonetsk
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