Putin is getting closer; an attack can happen at any moment! Geopost reports from eastern Ukraine

The mornings in Severodentsk are quite cold and calm. But the news that reaches this city on Friday night is not very encouraging. World media report that the Russian offensive could begin soon. Latvia, South Korea, Japan and Norway have called on their citizens to leave Kiev and Ukraine immediately. The European Union will join them on Friday afternoon. Israel is withdrawing its diplomats. Foreign media report that Russia could attack Ukraine before the end of the Olympic Games. So, soon.

It’s Friday afternoon. We are talking to Tatjana Bjelanskaja in a Turkish cafe in the center of Severodentsk. She shows us the Order of Bravery awarded to her after the liberation of this city from pro-Russian separatists. She used to be in a relationship with a Bosnian, so we understand each other.

“I am not afraid. I was not afraid even when they occupied us in 2014. And now Putin can’t do anything to us “, Tanja encourages everyone who is at our table.

But the news that is coming is not so encouraging. The United Kingdom, the British Guardian reported on Friday afternoon, issued a recommendation to its citizens not to travel to Ukraine.

“Russia is building field hospitals not only in the south of Belarus, but also in the north of occupied Crimea,” writes the well-informed German journalist Julian Ropke, enclosing satellite images.

The beginning of the day was pretty quiet. The train from Lisichansk to Popasna departs at seven in the morning. The warnings of the three Bosnians we met in Severodonetsk came true. The track looks decent, but all the time you have the feeling that you are driving on macadam. Wooden benches do not allow us to fall asleep, so we notice all the details. The railroad workers are mostly women. The conductor gives us three tickets. Miroslav Maljevanec, our guide and translator, a good student and an even better man, says three tickets cost two dollars. But we did not come to Ukraine to study the standard of living. For months, there have been world media cameras reporting that Russia is preparing an invasion of Ukraine. The Russian president, meanwhile, says his army is only conducting a major exercise on Ukraine’s borders. The Americans, meanwhile, are urging their citizens to leave Ukraine. Our Bisera Turković also warned us that “we do not travel for no reason” to this country, so that is why we came to this country.

On the railway that we use to drive from Lisichansk to Popasna, trains used to go to the very border with Russia. Now they are not going beyond Popasna. There is a red line beyond which one cannot go further. Part of Ukraine, from Popasna to the border with Russia, is controlled by paramilitary pro-Russian formations which, with the help of the motherland, occupied parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The government from Kiev has not controlled the east of the country since 2014. Both sides are well integrated on the demarcation line. Formally, a truce lasts. In reality, explosions echo around the town of Popasna every night. The night before our arrival, a dozen of them echoed. Thus, at least, it is noted by the OSCE mission, which, similarly to Bosnia and Herzegovina, can only express its concern.

Konstantin Jevgenevic is waiting for us at the station in Popasna. While we were traveling by train, he traveled by car. He had to pass two checkpoints, driving from our base to Severodonetsk. A short drive through the muddy city streets and we come to a crossroads in the fields next to the city. We turn left and after two kilometers we can’t go any further. There are big roadblocks, and a soldier with a rifle. Next to the road is a trench and a trench complex.

“You can’t go on, there’s an enemy there,” he tells us.

“How far,” we ask.

“About 500 meters away in the field,” the soldier replies.

He warns us that we are on a rifle target. Konstantin and Miroslav do not have bulletproof vests. They hid behind the car until we finished our work. We didn’t hear a single shot.

“And otherwise, they shoot often,” said the soldier.

It is dangerous, quite dangerous. The day before we came to Popasna, we went to Luhanska Station. There were four of us. Thanks to Konstantin and Miroslav, my colleague Denis Bajrovic and I managed to get through four checkpoints of the Ukrainian army and police.

“Name and surname”, Miroslav translates the words of a Ukrainian policeman who is inspecting our passports at the third checkpoint from the Severodonetsk Direction.

Colleague Bajrovic is a little confused. A police officer holds his passport in his hands and asks him to tell him his name and surname. He was eventually forced to write his name on his cell phone. And, again, nothing. A Ukrainian policeman was missing one name.

“Fatherhood,” Miroslav will explain.

That’s the middle name. For example, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

We lost about half an hour at this point. But you can’t be late for Luhanska Station. Time stood still there in 2014. The city is in ruins. We turn off the main road and enter the village itself. Three hundred meters through the puddles and then the “STOP” sign. Next to it is a red board that says – “mines”. We came to the first line. A soldier with a rifle comes out of the improvised trench.

His name is Ivan and he is not more than 22 years old.

“Luhansk is there. About 20 kilometers “, explains Ivan.

It is calm in his trench for now. But seven days before our arrival, a Ukrainian soldier was wounded in one of the trenches around Luhansk Station. Bursts are heard mostly at night. Some 500 meters from Ivan’s trench is a place where one can cross into the territory under the control of the separatists. Thousands of people move from one side to the other every day. But only on foot. Ukrainians who want to visit their relatives on the other side come, for example, by bus to Luhansk Station, and then walk-through checkpoints. On the other side, buses or taxis are waiting for them. For the elderly and sick, there are wheelchairs. Within the crossing itself you have a pharmacy, a bakery and several street honey sellers. Eugene is one of them.

“Since 2015, it has been mostly peaceful. “Sometimes I hear explosions and shootings,” Yevgeny tells us.

In the area of Luhansk Station, OSCE observers heard 95 bursts on Wednesday night. Machine guns were also fired. No one was injured. During the last year, 2021, 91 civilians were killed. Data on military casualties are unknown.

There are two military hospitals in the city of Severodonetsk. Access is allowed only to military medical personnel. But in the room next to ours, in what the hosts call a hotel, the soldiers who make up the medical team sleep. They are from the interior of Ukraine and spend some time there on duty. Every day they go to another part of the city to take care of the wounded in the military hospital. They are not allowed to talk to strangers about details. Fortunately, there is a Bosnian community in the city. The five of them have been here for 30 years. They all married Ukrainian women. Suvad Tutnic is the oldest among them. He is originally from Zeljezno Polje near Zepce. He worked and lived in the former Soviet Union, and then, when the war in BiH began, he came to Severodonetsk. He settled down there.

“During the war, we were in a media blockade here. The Russians controlled all the media and transmitters. That is why we got up at 2 in the morning to listen to Free Europe and to hear what is happening in Bosnia. At the beginning of the war, they also sent us the Bosnian newspaper “Oslobodjenje” from Moscow. It was quite bad news, but it was contact with BiH “, says Tutnic.

He says that a letter from Bosnia came to him once after six months. But that was in the war.

“Then the war came here, in Severodonetsk. “We never thought there would be a war,” he explains.

In the spring of 2014, Severodonetsk fell into the hands of pro-Russian separatists. But the Ukrainian army returned it to its control in the summer of the same year.

“The city has been liberated,” reads a memorial plaque in front of the city administration.

Above is a bust of Alexander Vitalijevic Radievski. A major general of the Ukrainian army was killed on July 23, 2014, during the liberation of the occupied towns in the Luhansk region. But even eight years later, this area has not been completely liberated. Pro-Russian separatists control 29.6 percent of the Donetsk region and 31.4 percent of the Luhansk region. Enough for the Russians to control the best mines in eastern Ukraine. At the same time, in 2014, the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was occupied. Russia now has supremacy at sea. Ukraine is, in fact, in a horseshoe. Russian ships are at sea, Crimea is annexed by Russia, part of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions are controlled by pro-Russian separatists, and in the north is Lukashenko’s Belarus, which is currently conducting joint military exercises with Russia. On the other hand, Ukrainians are also practicing.

Avdo Avdic, The Geopost contributer, eastern Ukraine!