FROM OUR REPORTER
OCHERETINE – Whenever they can, they prefer to live in the wooden peasant shacks of the suburbs rather than the crude concrete shacks of the center. The urban cores of Donbass have undergone profound changes in recent months. Four or five soldiers on the same patrol get together and share the cost of the food, they organize shifts to chop wood for the stoves, the cook is the best at cooking. “You don’t need much imagination, nobody turns down a plate of hot borscht in the evening,” they say, referring to the typical soup of these regions made of boiled vegetables, a piece of meat and sour cream. They are almost all men: we count very few women, practically none in the fighting units at the front.
The closer you get to hotspots of direct confrontation with Russian infantry, the dirtier and messier their dugouts become. There’s no time or inclination to clean up under the threat of bombing raids. After a few weeks of constantly endangered existence, with the non-stop roar of explosions a few meters away, it becomes necessary to get used to it: you put plugs in your ears, your body adjusts to the weight of the bulletproof vest and helmet (despite back) and in the end the soldiers just stuff their necks if a few shots fall too close.
But be warned: it doesn’t apply to everyone. Many sooner or later slip into depression and stress caused by living together for so long, with the inherent terror of seeing their mates torn apart and the ever-present fear for their own physical safety. Tremors, restlessness, insomnia and phobias are the order of the day. There are no suicide statistics. However, the military hospitals equip the pavilions for the treatment of people suffering from depressive syndromes resulting from life on the front lines.
The phenomenon is constantly growing and adds to the social imbalances caused by the hardships of divided families: men at the front and wives with children hundreds of kilometers away, often even emigrating abroad to countries such as Poland, Germany or Italy.
Almost 14 months after the start of the war by the Russian invasion, Ukraine is still having to deal with the long-term consequences: there are no statistics or in-depth investigations. As explained in the sociological faculties between Kiev and Lviv, as well as the military spokesmen themselves: “First of all, the Russians still need to be stopped, the war continues, then there will be time to study it, even in its deepest length -impact on the Ukrainian people “.
The most common problem is lack of money. Compared to 2021, the average individual income has halved. A significant portion of the army has remained volunteers since the 2014 conflict, and the central military machinery is not yet equipped to guarantee everyone uniforms, sleeping bags and even food.
In many cases this is replaced by local and foreign volunteer associations. Even in Bakhmut a few weeks ago we saw their activists’ vans arriving carrying commercial drones, sacks of potatoes, thermal blankets, Honda generators, diesel drums and Starlink antennas for satellite connections bought in Europe.
“Fortunately, the government recently decided to add another 2,500 to the monthly salary of 800 euros for the front-line soldiers,” tell us some marines, well quartered in their isba at the back of Avdiivka. But licenses are still distributed with a dropper. We met soldiers who were only able to visit their loved ones once for 10 days in 14 months. And the next time they don’t know when it will be.