Paweł Pieniążek - Greetings from Novorossiya - Eyewitness to the War in Ukraine

Today the rockets didn’t fall on Marinka but on Petrovska, the most western suburb of Donetsk.

In the evenings the Donetsk People’s Republic organizes a cultural program for its residents. Perhaps it is an attempt to relax a very tense atmosphere. For tonight they’ve announced waltzes. The event has started late. A few dozen people have shown up. “We are sorry that some people can’t come because they are fighting,” explains Klavdia, Press Bureau Secretary of the Donetsk People’s Republic. The dancing lasts two, three hours. After that they have organized, among other things, a concert of several unknown bands that play uplifting music but the turnout is a disaster. Eventually, the cultural program is abandoned.

Next day I decided to visit Marinka again. “It’s quiet. Today no one is shooting,” a woman in uniform tells us when we enter the city. She is the first uniformed female militant I have ever seen. She’s dressed like anybody else. She has sunglasses and a rifle. She claims that she must be very famous because everyone passing by takes her picture. You don’t see armed female militants very often. The Ukrainian side is no different. Women usually stay in the bases, work in the kitchens, supervise gifts from the residents, provide medical services, and so on.

I ask the taxi driver if he would mind going to the area that was bombed a day earlier. He says “no” and once again I end up in the shelled housing project. Today I can spend more time here and I hope that new shooting will not ruin my plans. Some local people, collaborating with the separatists, want to show us the destruction. I can finally take a look at the building in which I was hiding a day ago. It’s damaged, too. It must have been hit two days ago. There are holes in the walls, demolished and incinerated rooms, and shattered windows. You can see burned cars in the garages.

The Statistical Office of the Marinka Region took an almost perfect hit. In one of the central rooms you can see a shell casing. The wall panels are ripped off. By the window there is something wrapped in a lace curtain.

“He must have come to the window when the shelling started. Maybe he wanted to see what was going on,” says one of the guides and points his finger at the curtain. He grabs a stick and lifts the curtain part way off the cadaver. I see a stiff hand. There are no traces of the head. “We don’t know what to do with him, so we didn’t take him out,” explains one of the locals.

We leave the Statistical Office and after a moment we hear explosions again. We separate and run in different directions. Two journalists and I rush into a basement. There we meet two elderly men who apparently have stayed in their apartments. They don’t look agitated. They have a bottle of vodka with them. When the shelling stops I tell them they can go out.

“We’re staying. We prefer to drink here,” replies one of them. It turned out they were right. After a few minutes the firing started again. First, we hear the explosions in the distance, but after a while much closer. They sound different. It sounds to us like tank fire. Later on, the separatists would claim that they also saw the tanks.

We were in the middle of the housing project. We were to head for the separatists’ checkpoint where we had met the female militant. There is a shelter there and in it are my cab driver and my photographer. I run as fast as I can. Although my bulletproof vest is quite light, running is not easy. We keep close to the walls and trees as much as possible, so we can hide from the shells if we have to. The fire comes from the south so we cling to the walls facing north.

Suddenly I notice a man sitting on a bench. He may be over forty. He is slouching with his legs crossed. He appears to be relaxing. We stop and I look at him, perplexed.

“Sir? Why aren’t you running away or hiding?”

“I was baptized,” he responds, looking at me almost contemptuously.

I would like to talk to him more but thanks to the sounds of the consecutive exploding shells I change my mind.

We run onto the main road and here the problems begin. There is no place to hide and we have two kilometers more ahead of us. We take a break at a small shop. Then we move on. We try to walk under the trees to be less visible.

We reach the separatists’ checkpoint. They take us to the bomb shelter. You can’t see it from the road and you have to walk between some hangars. The bunker was built in Soviet times. This space, with at least four compartments, covers dozens of square meters. The separatists turned two compartments into bedrooms with cots and mattresses on the floor. Another compartment is a pantry with a fridge and the largest serves as a dining room. You can see a long table with two benches. Everywhere there are vests, a few weapons, and cardboard boxes, most likely with food in them. There is no electricity, but they have a battery-operated lamp. The light is dim but at least you can see what’s on the table: canned food, bread, cookies, water, tea, and so on. As they say, the table is ruled by communism—you can take what you want. And they invite us to dine.

“Try this honey. We’ve gotten it from the locals. It’s without GMOs!”

“Val,” the most cheerful of the entire company, encourages us. He is about fifty. And very devout. Although the majority in the bunker are religious, he is the most zealous. He has an armband with writing on it. As he explains, it is Psalm 80. Val believes that it will shield him from bullets.

“Bullets don’t touch it,” claims Val. This is his only protection from shells since he doesn’t wear a bulletproof vest. He is convinced he doesn’t need it because faith keeps him safe.

Religiosity and conservative values are nothing particularly odd among pro-Russian insurgents. Back in April they created the Russian Orthodox Army. From the very beginning of the Russian Spring numerous groups of pilgrims had been strolling around the Donetsk State Regional Administration building that was occupied by separatists.

Russian Orthodoxy here is strangely connected with antifascism as they perceive it. Everyone who doesn’t support Russia is a fascist. Local antifascists openly talk about the blood unity of Slavic nations and condemn faiths other than Russian Orthodoxy.

“Take my picture,” says Val.

“The photo will be better if you hold some weapon.” I encourage him.

Val picks up whatever is at hand. It is a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

“You are holding it the wrong way,” someone is shouting in the darkness.

“It won’t make any difference to these guys.” They burst into laughter.

Then he takes the weapon. This time properly. He doesn’t stop laughing.

Only some of the explosions are heard in the bunker. When the shells from Grads hit the ground one by one you know that something is going on. The firing calms down a little. I go outside to assess the situation and let my friends know I am all right (cell phones don’t work in the bunker).

“It’s odd. The shells are coming from places controlled by our people,” says one of the separatists. When I hear this, I am even more amused by the question everyone asks me: “Who is actually doing the shooting there?”