It's early morning and the phone rings; calls on SIM Feniks are always important because other telephone companies do not operate at the front. It is Yuri, the commander of the 5 ° Battalion stationed in Spartak. It was the word. For the third time he is hosting us, but this time he wants to give us a gift: he will take us to the advanced sighting post, the one that looks beyond the no man's land, from where the enemy looks directly into his eyes. 20 minutes and Felix with his red Lada is the usual meeting point.
You walk quickly and look around; the scenario is immobile in time and space. Only the details that the war-trained eye reveals more and more every day change: the immense wide street with the billboards knocked down, the dangling railroad trellises and the first huts with roses peeking out from the grass too high. Stray dogs, torn asphalt, scattered debris and an isolated farmer who hoes his garden. It's surreal, so it's her, it's Spartak ...
Arriving at the cottage the welcome is as warm as ever. In return for hospitality we brought tea, coffee, cigarettes, soft drinks, mineral water and the indispensable sunflower seeds, torture for thirst, but an indispensable drug of the people of the Donbass ...
The commander says that reaching the outpost is too dangerous for the intensity of the shots. We must postpone it. We make ourselves comfortable and taste the glaciers that Alexiej has prepared for us. Watching the soldiers in their routine looks like an old movie only for us. Time in the front line runs slow, so slow to stop often: whoever shaves, who washes clothes, who takes a shower, who sweeps the porch ... Every task serves to avoid thinking and killing tension, fear and boredom. The cook meanwhile chops up the vegetables. Perhaps because we are guests or perhaps it is the case: instead of the usual kasha let's have lunch okroshka the traditional cold soup.
After eating Spartaco goes to see us, the Italian volunteer enlisted in the army of the Donbass. It comes from an advanced location at 600 meters away from ours (and at 700 from the Ukrainians). He tells us that our "outing" is very dangerous and above all exceptional: he stresses several times that if they take us there, it means that they trust us. In the Donbass, there are currently no Western journalists, even more so in such advanced locations.
Spends time. The clouds gather and the wind rises. The sky becomes dark as lead and the rumble of thunder steals the echo from the artillery. It's a different sound, longer, but the effect is the same: it makes you shudder. The commander calls us: it's a good time to go. The noise of the wind, the thunder and the dark sky are the cover for an authentic march. There is a lot of walking and running. No bulletproof vest; only helmet and vegetated. Ukrainian snipers are lurking and are waiting for nothing else.
The storm is advancing, the apocalypse has never seemed so real to us. You drive fast through deserted boulevards, abandoned gardens and desolate courtyards. Everywhere rubble, devastation, ammunition exploded and ... blessed, blessed very tall grass. The commander indicates a house on a slight rise with windows blinded by explosions. Let's get in quickly and go up: wrought-iron railings, crystal chandeliers, a fireplace ... let's imagine toasts, smiles and parties from times gone by. The written on the walls erased and marked now instead speak of advanced and withdrawn. We still climb up to the floor along wooden boards. The stairs are gone. Roof and side walls have disappeared. We crawl over razor-sharp debris up to the bottom of a wall. A table, a chair, parts of an abandoned howitzer among the rubble ...
We are in the real war, cruel and full of rust. We lean out between the chipped bricks. Along an imaginary line that shows us as a front stands a yellow flag like wheat, blue as the sky ... Seen from here it is only the flag of the enemy. There is no time to think about anything else. Using binoculars by day would be too dangerous for an outpost generally used at night. We crawl back again and get back on the road to the most advanced position. It's the 4 of the afternoon but it feels like evening. The storm is upon us; the rumble of thunder is now deafening. To reach destination there are 300 meters in open field. Hoping for camouflage and in God you have to run faster than the wind.
The grass is high in some stretches even more than one man but suddenly a shot, then a brief burst ... We do not know if they have located us or if they shoot elsewhere, but we run fast without thinking. Shortness of breath alternates with that of steps. The commander speaks on the radio and other gusts arrive soon, this time closer. They are covering our advance. Puddles of water, cables of light to jump like a game for children, holes to avoid, grass that whip your face, then finally a building and a shutter. Concrete stairs, ladders and you get into the attic. The immense vault supported by wooden trusses suggests a cathedral.
A man in camouflage thrown on a mattress and one in a chair with binoculars in hand welcome us with a nod of the head. The commander grabs binoculars and climbs up the trusses: from that point the movements of the Ukrainians have no secrets. After a quick observation he hands the binoculars and invites us to look. You can see everything: the trenches, the bunkers, the ammunition boxes filled with sand. With a bakelite phone you communicate with the command; there is no movement that can escape from that position.
It starts raining. Who knows why but it looks good. A look of understanding on the threshold, the naive child's smile of the commander and then run away again.
(photos / images: Giorgio Bianchi)
