“Who else is going to fight here? Man!” : In the midst of trench warfare, Ukrainian soldiers regret that their country cannot today be integrated into NATO, which they say is already their “shield” against Russia.
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AFP
In a room of a small house in Donbass in eastern Ukraine, half a dozen screens broadcast images of the nearby front line filmed by drones.
Vladislav, the deputy commander of an infantry battalion, sits in front of the screens and scans the slowly passing landscape for the slightest movement of Moscow forces.
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He is in constant audio communication with the drone pilots hiding in shelters a few miles away.
Even at the epicenter of the fighting, the commander was following the NATO summit held Tuesday and Wednesday in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. He considers it “crucial and important for Ukraine and for Europe” that his country joins the Atlantic Alliance.
“At the moment we are getting weapons from NATO. On the other hand, we are already serving as a shield for NATO. And entering would formalize the fact that we are that shield,” explains the soldier, responding to the combat name “Oscar.”
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“The more we lose our Ukrainian land, the closer the Russians are to Europe’s borders,” he warns.
At the end of the NATO summit, Ukraine was offered long-term military support, but no prospect of joining the alliance in the short term.
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Very close to the line of contact with Russian forces, several drone pilots operate from a covered and deep shelter, a labyrinth of wide trenches and living quarters that are solidly laid out and quite comfortable.
In one of the rooms, Goummi is sitting in an armchair, holding a drone control console in his hands. He’s been studying for four months.
When asked about NATO, the student reacted rather bitterly.
“Ukraine will be accepted into NATO, but not now. “That will only be the case after the end of the war and after the conclusion of important political processes,” he said, referring to Article 5 of the alliance treaty.
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“If a NATO country is attacked, it is considered an attack on another country. Who will fight here? Person. “We do everything with our own hands,” he notes with regret.
“We expect our allies to express their sympathy and concern and say: ‘We will help you… No, we will help you and do everything for Ukraine to win… but you have to do it yourself,” ironically this 28-year-old soldier.
His comrade Jaroslaw, 23, is also bitter at his side.
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“NATO disappoints me a lot. I expected more – a wider range of weapons, tanks, aircraft, long-range systems and missiles,” he says.
But for him “it is not enough that the armed forces (of Kiev) attacked.” If there were certain amounts (of these weapons) that (Commander-in-Chief Valery) Zaluzhny needed, the offensive would go better and faster, without the casualties that we suffer,” he said.
Pilot apprentice Gummi believes that the war “will go on until we get them (the Russians) out of harm’s way with our own hands and with our human resources.” I don’t know how long that can last. Because there will not be a permanent stockpile of weapons either,” he predicts.
AFP