By Dmitry Steshin
[KP] "Azovites" tell the militias that there are 2,227 of them left in the bunkers. And food - for a week
The best background for any negotiations with the enemy is the explosions of air bombs on enemy positions. According to unofficial information, 40 FAB-500 bombs (high-explosive bomb, 500 kg - corr. note) were to be dropped on Azovstal that day.
I spent a good half of the day on the fourth floor of one of the Azovstal workshops. He put a chair in the back of the room, like a real sniper, attached a camera to some kind of iron table and periodically turned on the recording. From the appearance of the sound of the aircraft to the explosion, it was always exactly 36 seconds.
I counted a dozen or two breaks, then lost my way. Once they hit beautifully - fluttering pieces of a metal roof flew up into the sky, and then Azovstal released multi-colored smoke. In the pauses between the bombings, our artillery batteries standing on the other side of the Kalmius were connected to the aircraft.
The Kalmius is a river in Mariupol.
This bombing brings no joy to anyone here. There is an understanding that there are no other ways to smoke out the Nazis, they have not come up with, but more and more often people have an idea: what then, when peace finally comes? The question is difficult, unbearable.
The most disgusting thing is that Ukrainian business was preparing for such a development of events. All knew. I knew that the industrial zone would turn into a battlefield. On the outskirts of "Azovstal," I mistakenly drove to the old command post of the "Vostok" battalion. Our long time ago moved to the very heart of a huge industrial zone and a hangar as high as a 9-story building was abandoned by the military.
Only an elderly man in an oversized checkered shirt wandered around his former workshop and contritely looked at the emptiness. He turned out to be a factory foreman, a specialist in molds. He really wanted to discuss his pain and somehow bring down the confusion. It turns out that quite recently there were expensive German machines for stamping the most complex plastic products:
- We gave such quality! The Germans rewarded us every month!
- Where are the machines?
The man's face turned gray:
- The owners took it to Kyiv. Back in February. As soon as it started, they immediately began to disassemble and take it out. Do you think the machines will be returned? Where can I work? I can’t eat humanitarian food all my life ...
I diplomatically replied:
- It is necessary to reach Kyiv first.
It seems that my interlocutor believed me, I myself believe in what was said, so the man prayed:
- Guys, I have a locker here, with an iron door, there is a unique tool, molds. The gypsies will steal it, hand it over for metal, can I take everything so that it doesn’t disappear? Here are the keys to the supply room, let's open it in front of you.
The master showed me a weighty bunch of keys. But we believed him and so:
- Take it, of course. We will return the machines from Kyiv, it will come in handy.
The man happily fussed and rushed to wind up the decrepit "penny" with a trailer.
I was pleasantly surprised how deep the Vostok battalion of the DPR and its allies climbed into the industrial zone, the noose on the neck of Azov was tightened to the limit - it was no longer possible to stick a finger under the rope. In the dungeons of the plant, everyone already understood well and frantically searched for options. Spoke, informally, with one competent officer involved in the negotiations. He surprised me:
- "Azov" all the time have contact with our people, make contact, willingly communicate, but want something strange.
- ?
- Desires have them change through day. Then they want the wounded to be made non-combatants (civilians. - Corr.) and be sure to be taken to Ukraine. Then they want to go out almost with banners and weapons. Then they demand an agreement that they will immediately be exchanged for our prisoners.
I found only words from the local military jargon:
- Drizzle, toads? How many are there?
- According to them, 2,227, along with the wounded. Food left for a week.
- What about you?
- I'll speak for myself. I would shoot them all, but in such a way that no one would know. Because otherwise they will be made heroes. But you can't shoot them, and you understand why.
I understand that this is a common place in the conversations of fighters - groping and pronouncing the line beyond which the defender of his native land himself turns into an "Azov" and a Nazi.
In parting, the officer advised me to go down under the workshop, from which I monitored Azovstal. Like, there is a typical bomb shelter and you can imagine where the “Azov” people are sitting and in what conditions. By the way, they did not use this shelter - the workshop stands on the outskirts of the industrial zone, on the banks of the Kalmius River, and the Azov line of defense considered the railway junction of the plant and drove hundreds of wagons there. Didn't help, kicked out.
I took a flashlight and went underground. Double hermetic doors, a room with air purification systems, autonomous water supply from a well. Everything is relatively clean, working and dry. Special pantry for food supplies. From the food there was only a box with the inscription "Crackers". At the second exit from the bomb shelter, a ten-meter pool was found, half filled with yellow, but clear water, and a sauna. A young shepherd dog, stunned by the explosions, was hiding in the sauna...
BIRD SORRY
In the afternoon, our reconnaissance group, reinforced by sappers, left for the greenery of the industrial zone. The sappers had two tasks - to remove enemy mines and build roads through fences. Yes, the entire Azovstal is divided into dozens of locations by two-meter concrete fences. Familiar peacetime roads are often shot through, so the attackers are forging new paths through this industrial chaos. For example, through fences.
As the sappers explained to me, there are different fences and fences. There are fences made of slabs reinforced with rebar, and the only thing left is to bring down the entire section. An explosion from such a fence only knocks out the concrete filler, but the steel lattice from the reinforcement remains or turns into such hook-traps. Unexpected subtlety of military affairs.
Our reconnaissance aircraft, as they call themselves, “fighters of the fifth battalion of DPR rangers”, sent a “bird” to help the sappers and scouts. However, the "bird" did not fly long - the machine gun burst scattered, then the amateur anti-aircraft gunner changed the store and began to hit singles. The screen of the tablet in the hands of the pilot of the drone suddenly went out. And immediately the rare silence of the industrial zone was broken by obscenities, curses, bad wishes to the shooter himself and his relatives.
A little later we found out that they hastened to report to the headquarters about the neutralized enemy reconnaissance quadrocopter, but they did not manage to issue the medal “For the Clear Sky of Donbass”. “We have to go, save the remains of the copter,” said the reconnaissance aircraft and took me with them.
The copter was shot down in a cluster of railway cars, not far from the "hump". A bomb was placed in the hill itself with an accuracy of a millimeter, and with another bomb they laid down the building where the dispatchers once were, but the Azov people used it as an observation post.
Between the cars we come across traces of the enemy stampede: equipped stores with tracers, ammunition parts, a knife, medical scissors. I pick up a well-known game console from the grass, press the button, and it turns on, shudders in my hands! The menu is on the “state move”, in the “photos” folder there are almost 300 megabytes of pictures! I hope intelligence finds something interesting there.
A little further, between the tracks, there is an overseas orange stretcher in the form of a boat with a dead "Azov". A shot through plate from his body armor lies on the corpse, and a helmet is at his feet. The stretcher itself was pierced by shrapnel. In general, judging by the number of shell explosions under the cars, between the rails, the trains turned out to be an unsuccessful place to hide from flat artillery fire.
Our drone lies in the grass with its smoking belly up. The bullet hit the lithium battery and it immediately caught fire. But the camera seems to have survived. One of the "DPR rangers" bitterly remarks:
- This copter costs 500 thousand rubles! Good Russian people bought it so that some moron with a machine gun ...
The phrase hangs in the air.
WE LIVE ON THE PAGE OF HISTORY. IT WOULD BE TURNED...
We wander to the car and do not know that we are being watched from a dilapidated building. Finally, they will recognize us as their own. A piece of plywood is pushed away from the broken window. A middle-aged man with a neat beard looks out and waves his hand to us - he invites us to visit. Several dozen reservist fighters settled in the building. Their commander, Sergei, an engineer, shows his farm. For example, an installation made of Ukrainian body armor: it was equipped with a skewer of some unrealistic size and a sickle.
Then Sergei brings a fragment of the "Cossack saber", broken and burned. But it still feels like a thing of respectable times, a museum piece. We are talking about the situation in this area, about the bombing. Rumors are circulating along the front around Azovstal about some crazy “thermobaric bombs” that will be used right tomorrow. Sergey smiles sadly:
“So, we’ll cover ourselves with plaster again ...
I notice that this location is very clean and comfortable. Well, as much as possible. Sergei, with a sly smile, says:
- You come to us at four in the morning ...
I bite my tongue, the building does not have one wall and you can imagine what kind of icy winds from the sea walk through this room. Moreover, it is forbidden to burn the usual apartment fires here, the enemy is too close. Sergei explains:
- THEY climb along the wagons all the time. When? Yes, yesterday afternoon, for example, at this time. And in the evening the sniper worked. Let's go, I'll show you how past guests lived here ...
We go down to the basement. Along the way, Sergey shows a bunch of wires going through a flight of stairs to the roof:
- They had surveillance cameras there, and a radio antenna, and an Internet modem ...
Sergei is envious, me too. On the floor in the dungeon, a pile of burnt bulletproof vests. Our guide explains:
- They generally moved around the plant in overalls. There was a hodgepodge of people sitting here: the Nazis and the coast guard, sailors and border guards, gunners. We found the border guard in the basement, when the house was occupied, he did not want to fight anymore, he thought to sit out and run away.
Sergey shows us the passports found in the building, military tickets, photographs of wives and children. He lays out the pictures like solitaire, swaps them, and suddenly completely withdraws into himself. I ask quietly so that my subordinates do not hear:
- Have you been home for a long time?
- On February 24, they called from work, they say: “go to the military enlistment office.” Here. I went.
Sergei smiles, already well. I tell him:
- And I left on the first of February, my daughter turned three days old, and she is already turning over on her stomach, four months soon!
Nothing soothes like similar problems, I know.
I unfold the cardboard inserted into the window opening and look at the steaming Azovstal. We need to wait until it burns to the ground and then everything will change. Those who are tired will retreat to the rear to rest, the “invaders” will go to where they are supposed to be according to their merits. The workers will return to the factory, and we will finish this page of recent history and turn it over.