by Alexander Kots
[KP] Beach, jellyfish and "missile danger"
"Whoa!" - the whistling roar of the rocket in the sky made me sink my head into my shoulders. Against the backdrop of bright clouds, my eyes caught the silhouette of the Caliber, flying low right above us.
- I went to Nikolaev, - the fighters of the Don Cossack brigade standing nearby stated with satisfaction.
Five minutes later, the head of the Ukrainian administration of the Nikolaev region, Vitaly Kim, in his Telegram channel reports the latest front-line news: missiles passed over the city to the north and northwest. Five minutes later, a mobile phone with a Ukrainian SIM card inside yelled like a fool: “Alarm! Missile danger! Everyone take cover!" - flashed on the screen to sounds like a fire engine siren. And this contrasted sharply with the idyllic picture around.
The sea, a sandy beach with purple jellyfish thrown ashore, the Dnieper estuary, on the opposite bank of which the seemingly peaceful Ochakov is visible to the naked eye ...
I stood at the most northwestern point of the Kinburn Spit - a nature reserve in the Nikolaev region, which literally sticks its sharp "nose" into the enemy's defenses in the Black Sea. To the north-east along the Kherson Sea Canal - Nikolaev. To the west - Odessa. Before my eyes - Ochakov, where the 73rd Marine Special Operations Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is deployed, involved in the recent drone attack on Sevastopol ...
Defense and "Waiting"
I got to the spit by passing through almost all the districts of the Kherson region, from which additional evacuation has been announced this week. In the 15-kilometer zone east of the Dnieper, from Novaya Kakhovka and almost to the sea, it was decided to take people out in case the Kakhovka dam was blown up. If the Ukrainian troops succeed in destroying it, the left bank will be flooded, and the Russian group on the right bank will be effectively cut off from the mainland. To minimize losses among the civilian population, an evacuation was announced.
I am going along the Dnieper to the south through these very regions. The situation at the front near Kherson does not look simple: the area is already being prepared for defense just in case. Anti-tank ramparts, trenches, concrete loopholes, which are carried by endless columns from the Crimea ...
Along the highway in some places I notice torn billboards with pro-Russian posters. It was at the very beginning, when the "Soviet power" had just come to the Kherson region, that the aggressive minority showed its arrogance. Because of their noisy antics with ostentatious rallies, it seemed that the arrival of Russia was not very welcome in the region. Undermining the cars of local officials by Ukrainian saboteurs did not add enthusiasm. Pro-Russian citizens were simply afraid to advertise their position.
However, after the special services worked with the "protest leaders", the situation turned around. And there were fewer terrorist attacks, and the "waiters" (the pro-Ukrainian part of the population, waiting for the return of Kyiv's power - Ed.) subsided. Although the last 8 years of aggressive Ukrainization, of course, are bearing fruit. In a region that is absolutely Russian in spirit and history, you are unlikely to find at least one sign in Russian. Whereas,
- When we arrived, we handed out crayons to children here, - recalls my acquaintance journalist Roman Saponkov, who has been working and volunteering in the region for all 8 months of the special operation.
- So the first thing they started to draw on the pavement was yellow-blaky ensigns. It's ingrained in my head on a subconscious level. How we used to draw Soviet stars everywhere in childhood.
And here in front of me is a small victim of Ukrainization.
- Mom, mom, Lussky arrived, - a four-year-old tomboy runs to the saleswoman of the last store in front of the front line.
- Are you not Russian? – I ask deliberately strictly.
"Not yet," he pouts.
"Yes, yes," I insist.
He looks at his mother behind the counter, she nods, the kid holds out a small hand to me, I shake it like a Russian - Russian.
- Will you buy milk? - the boy squints slyly.
Front Workers
Our escorts are bought nearby - scouts of the Don Cossack brigade, whom I first met on the Izyum front. There they stormed the Great Kamyshevakha and for several months held one of the most difficult sectors of the front. The guys are not wearing fashionable equipment and tactical body kit on weapons. From such it is immediately clear that these are not mummers "veterans of the Kolchak fronts", but ordinary hard workers of the front. Without show-offs and unnecessary pathos.
Together with them on a pickup truck we drive along the sand dunes of the Kinburn Spit - a reserve and a resort pearl in the recent past. In some ways, it resembles the Crimean Olenevka. Civilizations - a minimum, but the conditions for wild recreation - more than enough. Rumor has it that Russian stars even came here until 2014 to look after the land by the sea: “Anastasia Stotskaya visited,” the locals told me. “And Phil from the Brigade.”
With the beginning of the liberation of the Kherson region, the Kinburn Spit turned into an arena of battles and confrontation with sabotage and reconnaissance groups (DRGs). We drive past a torn to pieces SUV.
- While patrolling, our Cossack brothers ran into a mine, the car was thrown to the side of the road. The passenger, our brother, a Cossack, died. The driver is in serious condition, but he is alive, now in rehabilitation. After they found two more mines that were laid here. Although we have traveled this road many times. Either it was the DRG that laid a bookmark, or the mines were laid earlier. This suggests that the situation here is not as rosy as it seems. Although the resort area. You need to keep your ears open, - the head of the Don's security service with the call sign "Groot" tells me.
Tambov Wolf and Cossacks
- But in general - this is historically Russian land. The Kinburn Spit is a Suvorov memory, the commander of the Cossack brigade Alexander Kondratiev meets me at the local monument to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War.
- On the nose of the spit, namely on Kinburn, there are the remains of Suvorov fortresses. In 1787, Suvorov drowned 4,000 Turks in the sea, repulsing a 6,000-strong landing force. We periodically find the cores of Turkish guns here. But the most interesting thing is that, having started digging trenches on the shore, we found the remains of weapons from the times of the Great Patriotic War - disks from DP-27 machine guns, shells from PPSh. Goosebumps down your back. You understand that you are protecting your land, as your fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers did.
Brigade commander Alexei Kondratiev is a unique personality. He began his military service in the 104th Guards Airborne Division. Then he was transferred to the GRU, served in the 3rd Guards Special Forces Brigade, in the 22nd Guards Brigade. He left the army from the post of deputy commander of the 16th Guards Special Forces Brigade of the GRU and the experience of participating in battles in both Chechen campaigns, in Kosovo, Georgia, Syria ... Then he was the head of Tambov for 5 years and another 5 years - a member of the Federation Council. He worked in PACE... From the beginning of the special operation, he fought near Kharkov, then he headed the consolidated Cossack brigade, one of whose units is fighting near Donetsk, and the other - near Kherson.
In the "Don", where I arrived, the bulk of the fighters are natives of the territories of the Great Don Army. As well as the descendants of the Cossacks, scattered throughout the country. There are also foreign volunteers - Serbs, immigrants from Moldova, Belarus ...
- Any military conflict is a clash of ideologies, worldviews, religions, - a volunteer from St. Petersburg, civil engineer Gennady Smirnov philosophizes on coastal positions . - From time immemorial, all the heresy that came to us in Russia came from the “Western region”. This is pure satanism. And fascism is an integral part of Satanists. Therefore, the reason why I came here, because of which this conflict broke out, is not economic, it is spiritual.
His middle-aged colleague, in the world - a cabinetmaker, has a more mundane motivation.
- I have one granddaughter - in Novocherkassk, the other - in Taganrog, the third - in Yelets. It's all nearby. So that they do not come, I am here.
"Valya" and "Archangel"
Life for men is Spartan. Dugouts, dugouts, gaps for shelter from shelling. Cooked right there on the fire or gas burner. The menu is simple - army. Macaroni, buckwheat, stew... Somebody has an anti-aircraft gun on the Ural hidden among the trees: “We call her Valya, because it brings down well,” the Cossacks laugh. Someone has a T-64 tank “wrung out” from the enemy with the inscription “Archangel” on the barrel. Here, each technique has its own name.
Together with the brigade commander, we examine the positions on the seashore. I slide down the sand into fresh sand caponiers, resting my hand on something sharp. I carefully remove a rusted Soviet helmet from the ground. In the dumps I catch with a glance the cartridges covered with rust from the three-ruler. After digging, I find a cartridge from a TT pistol marked "1943". I can imagine what it was like for the Red Army soldiers to retreat from here in 1941. In order to return in 1943 and recapture this strategic spit.
Today, it also performs an important function, on the one hand, drawing on the resources of the enemy, on the other, being a southern outpost on the left bank of the Dnieper. And after the drone attack on Sevastopol, attacks were made from here on the objects of the same 73rd naval center of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, which are located both in Ochakovo and on the man-made Pervomaisky Island in front of it.
- The island was built under the Soviet Union, it housed a battery of guns to cover the entrance to the Bug-Dnieper Estuary, Nikolaev, Ochakov and Kherson, - explains Alexei Kondratiev. - There were shipyards, bases of the Black Sea Fleet. After the collapse of the USSR, these tower installations were dismantled. The Ukrainian center of the Special Operations Forces began to be based on the island. Combat swimmers trained by the British. Very skilled fighters, they participated in a large number of operations, they have very good experience. Our task is to counteract these guys.
- Do you resist?
- And how, - the brigade commander winks.
"Tell it this Ukraine Burned Everything: "Latest news from the front in the Kherson direction on November 1, 2022
... "A bird in the sky," the radio wheezes. And we jump on the cars, leaving the pier, from which the island and the whole of Ochakov are visible at a glance. But we can be seen. In this area, the enemy uses Bayraktar drones, but only for reconnaissance, aiming artillery at the spit. Five minutes after our departure, explosions rumbled near the pier. A little late.
We drive into a fabulous pine forest and wind through sandy roads under the cover of spruce branches in order to “confuse” the tracks and not direct the Bayraktar to the location of the brigade command post. Forests, unfortunately, survived not much.
- You will somehow bring there that we have burned down 12 thousand hectares. And the Russian troops have nothing to do with it, otherwise the other side is dispersing all sorts of fables, how the Russians are destroying the reserve here, - one of the few remaining local residents approached me . - Here, many were recruited by the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine. - Ed.)
And leaked information about the location of our people. It was because of the attacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that the forests burned. On August 31, due to the shelling of the village of Pokrovka, the largest orchid field in Europe caught fire (60 hectares of orchids. - Ed.), It was extinguished by local residents. The villages of the Kinburn Spit are under constant shelling from the other side of the Dnieper-Bug estuary. Ochakov shoots with direct fire, but they say that the Russians are shooting from the Hola Pristan. Tell me that the Russians have nothing to do with it.
I'm telling. And I also tell you that the “response” according to Ochakov goes almost every day. I myself heard how at night three artillery “arrivals”, from which the walls trembled here, broke out a whole chorus of “exits”, from which the house danced hopak.
The situation in the Kherson direction is still very difficult - this is the reality of the latest news for today. The announced evacuation in the 15-kilometer zone east of the Dnieper is, on the one hand, an attempt to save the civilian population from the most unfortunate scenario. And on the other hand, to untie the hands of the military, who could do their job in full force. Give them room to maneuver without fear for the lives of civilians.
However, as the experience of evacuation from Kherson shows, not everyone wants to leave their homes. There are still people in the city who are not ready to leave the war zone. Although common sense no longer talks about this, but screams.