Luis Ramirez
DONETSK REGION, UKRAINE— Two years into Ukraine’s war,
many of the people caught in the midst of it see the conflict as frozen and
forgotten by the rest of the world. With diplomatic efforts thus far
failing, many see either an escalation or the relinquishing of territory as the
only alternatives to ending the war.
When Olga Aleshychkina’s home
in the #Donetsk region town of Horlivka was shelled in 2014 and her business
destroyed, her family had to try to start over. They traveled down the
road to Kramatorsk - a town that back then was just on the edge of the
Ukrainian-controlled area - found an apartment, and opened a restaurant.
“Of course, I understand that
we can’t bring back what we had before, this is for sure, but at least let’s
not to make it worse for anyone," she said. Aleshychkina
especially tried to protect her children and make them feel as secure as possible.
Then, the shells started
landing in Kramatorsk, too.
“I was terrified that there
and here, the same hell was happening,” she told VOA. “You think that in this
place there is peace and then the same process begins here.”
Two years into the conflict,
Aleshychkina says her family is just surviving and the only thing she wants is
for the war to end.
She considers herself lucky
that she found an apartment and did not have to go to a shelter for displaced
people, as thousands of others have had to do.
These days, families continue to flee their homes, but
unlike at the start of the war, it is more often economic conditions that are
now driving many from the war zone. With many coal mines closed or
flooded, jobs have largely disappeared. The coal mining jobs that are
left are often in dangerous, illegal mines.
For some, leaving is the only alternative to joining
separatist groups, says Olexander Petrov, a volunteer who regularly enters
combat areas to evacuate civilians.
The conflict is stuck, and so are people’s lives.
“We do not need a frozen conflict in Ukraine,” Petrov told VOA. “It is not
possible to just stall this war. We can only either win it or lose it,” he
said, and he hopes government soldiers “will finally get the orders” to defeat
the separatists.
Ukrainian leaders are bracing for a major new
offensive that may begin at any time, and both sides are sending supplies,
equipment and personnel to the front. VOA observed a convoy of 25
Ukrainian military trucks on Sunday heading into what the government designated
the “Anti-Terrorist Operation” area of the Donetsk region.
Ukraine says it is more prepared than it has ever been
following two years of anti-corruption reforms and development of forces,
thanks in part to U.S. assistance that has included training and non-lethal
equipment such as medical supplies and mobile hospitals.
Today’s Ukrainian military is not the same corrupt,
hollowed-out force that allowed Russian-backed separatists to overrun parts of
eastern Ukraine two years ago, Ukrainian leaders say.
“In the beginning of this conflict, we had a terrible
situation in our military,” Ukraine’s Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak told VOA
in an interview last week.
He noted that since last year, Ukraine has doubled its
military budget and manpower.
“I can reassure you that if (Russian President
Vladimir) Putin decides to attack, this is not going to be an easy trip for him
or for his soldiers.”
Despite the doubling of manpower, Ukrainian soldiers
are seeing their deployments extended.
One soldier riding a train from Kyiv to the front line
told VOA he has seen improvements in supplies, training and equipment, but at a
lesser scale than the doubling of the budget and resources might suggest.
“We have enough food, uniforms, equipment,
night-vision goggles, guns. Volunteers help a lot. What they bring is
always better. What the government gives is good, but not as good as what the
volunteers bring,” he said, requesting anonymity.
But the quantity or quality of supplies is not for
him, personally, the biggest source of frustration. He believes Ukraine’s
leaders have forsaken the country’s best interests by not fighting the war more
aggressively.
“We are waiting for the order. We could clean the
territory out very fast. We could take them (the separatists) out,” he
said. “This is kind of a sell-out war. Our government, they kind of
betrayed the actions of soldiers who are doing a great job and are losing their
lives because of the actions of the government. It is for nothing.”
Frustration
Ukrainian leaders share some of the frustration, especially when it comes to
their longstanding request to the United States for lethal equipment, including
anti-tank weapons and air defense systems.
The Obama administration continues to reject those
calls. Analysts say Washington believes that arming Ukraine more robustly could
provoke an overt confrontation with Russia in a place where the U.S. leadership
sees no deep strategic interests.
Two years after the start of the conflict, Ukrainians
living in the war zone perceive they are alone in the fight.
In the beginning of the Maidan revolution that led to
the war, “we perceived the U.S. a protector,” a woman in her 20s who
participated in the 2014 protests, told VOA - asking not to be named.
“The U.S. said ‘we are on your side’ and U.S.
officials gave out cookies to demonstrators during Maidan,” she said. “This all
created the image in our minds that we could get more.”
Now, she said, Ukrainians like to joke with each other
by saying “we’re very concerned” when they really mean they don’t care that
much about something.
Search for solution
Lyudmila, a businesswoman in Kramatorsk, which has changed hands twice in the
conflict, told VOA she believes it is time to stop the war, even if that means
giving up land to the separatists. “Just let them go. Not that I want to
let them go, but we should not waste time,” she told VOA. “I do not want to
wait for the miracle to come.”
That view is not shared by all.
Olga Aleshychkina expresses no opinion on how the war
should end, but she knows she wants it to end soon and she says she prays for a
miracle. “There is anxiety, but still we are trying to fight,” she said
on a chilly morning Sunday as she took her young son to football practice in a
gymnasium near the apartment where she now lives.
Aleshychkina likes to think better times are
ahead. “Looking at our new generation, my soul is happy and singing,
thinking that everything will be all right. This is all that I want.”
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