The Fighting Spirit of Ukrainians

"If Wagner retreats from Bakhmut now, the whole front will collapse. The situation will not be sweet for all military formations protecting Russian interests/"

"If we retreat, then we will go down in history forever as people who have taken the main step towards losing the war."

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head, mercenary Wagner Group

"We fight for our children, for our fellow Ukrainians, for our nation."

"Because I think what Russia is doing now is genocide of Ukrainians. And Ukrainians don't have another option but to win."

Moryak, fighter in Vuhledar

"[The town is] completely destroyed; all civilians have been evacuated]."

"They destroy everything because, with their tactics, they cannot defeat our troops, and resort to the destruction of all living things."

Artm Schus, police chief, Marinka, Ukraine

Marinka used to be home to around 10,000 people. Photo by MFA of Ukraine / Twitter

Marinka located in the Donetsk Oblast, on the front lines of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been under fire for close to a decade. A town that once held 10,000 people, it is utterly destroyed, all its buildings pulverized, the area pockmarked with hollows from constant shelling. From the original Russian intervention in East Ukraine, backing and supplying the ethnic Russian-Ukrainian militants, the town was alternatively in the possession of both parties; Ukraine and Russia.

What is left now is an  utter wasteland. The town completely razed, its only inhabitants now are Ukrainian soldiers fighting to preserve the territory for Ukraine. 130 kilometres in distance separates Marinka from Bakhmut where Russian forces claim to be on the verge of seizing the city. The head of the Wagner Group claims his fighters completely surround the city, and are awaiting a shipment of ammunition from Moscow to enable them to complete their mission.

Yevgeny Prigozhin has been grumbling angrily over what he insists is the Russian military's goal to starve his fighting group of necessary arms and ammunition. The military itself has met with little success against the intransigent determination of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and it seems Prigozhin feels the Russian military elite are resentful of his group's successes. Which have come with an enormous cost in the lives of his own fighting men.

In a recently completed video, or several short videos published on the weekend Prigozhin contends that the Russian leadership was scheming to set him and his group up to become scapegoats should the front collapse and Russia is forced to withdraw back across the border, tail between its legs. Russia conceding defeat against Ukraine arouses suspicion one of the other between the military and Wagner's merenary group.

 

A local resident stands in her house, which was damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the front line city of Vuhledar, Ukraine, Feb. 18, 2023. Photo by Yevhen Titov/REUTERS

 

Google streetview dated 2011 shows a main avenue through the town, a town that appears just like any other in eastern Europe. Back then normalcy prevailed; trees lining streets, people waiting for buses, squat Soviet-style buildings lining the streets and vehicles of varying vintage on the roads. A drone flight over the city shows no building now in Marinka remains intact. A scene in fact, reflective of other parts of Ukraine. Where people still manage to live in primitive conditions.

Less than 30 kilometres south of Marinka there is Vuhledar where people manage still to survive though it sits along the front stretching hundreds of miles from the Black Sea in the south to the border with Russia. There, people quietly emerge from basements of destroyed buildings to fill water bottles from filthy drainpipes. "We have no water, nothing. I"m getting rain water to wash dishes and hands", explained one resident.

Russian forces have encountered unexpected resistance in their push forward to capture the towns of Bakhmut, Marinka and Vuhledar. According to the Ukrainian soldiers fighting for Ukraine, they have succeeded in wearing down the enemy; shattered tanks and military vehicles -- a testament to the fighting spirit of Ukrainian defenders. 

Ukrainian service member loads anti-tank grenades at a BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, near the frontline town of Vuhledar, Ukraine, Feb. 22, 2023. Photo by Alex Babenko/REUTERS