Ukraine Restoring Itself

"We've got nothing. Nothing. I never expected to feel such fear."
"We've only survived because we keep a bit of a reserve of water and food."
Elena, 41, Slavyansk, Ukraine

"According to our intelligence, the morale of militants is extremely low because they feel abandoned, betrayed and deceived."
Interior Ministry advisor Anton Heraschenko 

"Donetsk must not be bombed. Donbass must not be bombed. Cities, towns and infrastructure must not be destroyed." 
Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine magnate

^{Ukrainian soldiers look at wrecked tanks and armored personnel carriers left by pro-Russian insurgents in Slavyansk, Ukraine (Getty)}

Elena will not commit herself to a curious reporter which side she favours, the Ukrainian regime or the ethnic Russian rebels. She is thankful that matters will soon be settled with the departure of the Russian-speaking rebels and the advance of the Ukrainian troops, however. Hoping that order will soon be restored, after the long siege that deprived her city of normalcy.

There is no running water, no electricity. There are no businesses open. The streets of the town remain deserted. Residents who would normally be within the town have long fled the conflict. Any that remain stay quietly in their homes. A small crowd of people mostly of elderly vintage wait patiently for "humanitarian" supply distribution. The food, water and medication that Kyiv promised them.

In early May, Ukrainian forces had placed checkpoints around Slavyansk, mounting a siege of the city to put a halt to the rebel expansion. Those isolated checkpoints came under rebel attacks, the number of military personnel insufficient to the task at hand. A week ago the blockade was in a fractured state. Rebels used tanks to destroy a checkpoint established north of the city.

^{Mines lay near a destroyed pro-Russian APC near the city of Slovyansk (AP)}

Raid and counter-raid, a conflict of attrition seemed the order of the day. Those swift attacks where pro-Russian fighters realized gains here and there as they demoralized the Ukrainian troops, gave them the impetus to plan and carry forward further attacks. Motivated in their vision of capturing a geography they had colonized as Russians living in Ukraine, they meant to award Russia with an expanded territory.

Their level of resistance was maintained by their belief in themselves and their aspirations and the successes they had managed to wreak out of the chaos they caused. Then, following days of artillery bombardment with Ukrainian forces strengthened to greater numbers and confidence restored, the resistance to the regime in Slavyansk suddenly dissipated; the rebel army had no weapons that could match the artillery.

Russian strongman Igor Strelkov gathered his men, their remaining tanks and gun-mounted vehicles and ingloriously fled the artillery, making a dash for Donetsk to preserve their rebellion and their lives. In Donetsk they were assured, the People's Republic and its established government would be immune to the kind of attack they had been on the receiving end of. Donetsk is a city of a million residents. They would defend it and retain it.

In Slavyansk, Ukrainian troops are attempting to restore some semblance of order, and at the same time to restore some of their equipment to working order. Like one of their tanks that needed to be pulled up out of a gully it had sunk into. Nearby lay the blackened turret of another tank, obstructing the northbound lane of the highway. The smashed remains of an armoured personnel carrier was among Ukrainian antitank mines, wrecked vehicle parts and unused ammunition.

The wreckage, according to Major Andrei Tikatsyuk a Ukrainian paratrooper commanding a checkpoint since early May, that was the remnants of a rebel armoured column. In their unsuccessful breakthrough early on Saturday he had lost one man, the rebels lost their lives, all of them. And the rebels lost Slavyansk thanks to the vast artillery barrage mounted, once the ceasefire ended last week.

The area now swarms with thousands of Ukrainian servicemen, special forces, regular army, police and the National Guard. Drawn in large part from the revolutionary militias that helped to remove Viktor Yanukovych from office. The Berkut riot police against whom the revolutionaries had fought during that time in February are fighting alongside them all, including the Donbass battalion.

The Ukrainian military with all its various militias are heading now toward Donetsk. They will establish a similar blockade and siege there. It will be far more difficult to draw out the rebels from the city of a million. They have been warned that the more infrastructure is destroyed in these rebel-held cities, the more difficult it will be to restore them to normalcy and to unify the population.

Distraught civilians in eastern Ukraine pass beneath a railroad bridge blown up July 7 over the main highway between Donetsk and Slovyansk. (Dmitry Lovetsky / Associated Press)

In hopes of stalling the military advance the rebels have destroyed three bridges leading to the city. One was a railroad span over the highway between Donetsk and Slovyansk. Part of an eleven-car freight train was left hanging on the collapsed track. The self-proclaimed governor of the "Donetsk People's Republic" claimed his rebels were preparing for a major counter-offensive.

Pavel Gubarev said that although his rebels were not likely to be successful without backing from Russia, they would proceed and carry on regardless. An oblique appeal to Russia to come to their aid, and likely with the self-acknowledgement that such appeals have rung on deaf ears of late.The retreating rebels, merely 're-positioning' themselves for better advantage have left destruction in their wake.

For their part, government forces have regained control of most border crossings with Russia and thereby have enabled themselves to prevent cross-border weapons transfers and the influx of mercenaries, according to Defense Ministry spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, in Kyiv. Speaking on behalf of a newly invigorated government, confidence brimming after a long hiatus of hopeless appeal for order.