by Viktoria Tolkacheva
[REGNUM] Nine years ago, the battles near Chernukhino with an offensive from the LPR and near Uglegorsk and Debaltsevo from the DPR became the largest scale actions of Donbass militias before the conclusion of the second Minsk agreements. In general, they became possible after the Debaltsevo cauldron, which went down in history along with the Ilovaisk cauldron. It was truly a big victory.
According to some reports, in Debaltsevo itself and in the outskirts of the city, the Ukrainian Armed Forces held from three to seven thousand people. In the People's Militia of the DPR and LPR, in the area near Chernukhino, where the Regnum correspondent went on the anniversary of the operation, from six to ten thousand fighters fought.
The battles lasted almost a month, during which the militia managed not only to oust the Ukrainian Armed Forces from a number of small settlements, but also to cut off almost all their retreat routes, defeating the units inside the encirclement. Some tried to escape from the cauldron and suffered losses, some eventually surrendered.
Another significant achievement for the militia was rich trophies: they received several dozen tanks, more than thirty infantry fighting vehicles, and tons of ammunition of various calibers from the enemy. And what is more important, a large transport hub was taken under control, which made it possible to establish a direct railway connection between Lugansk and Donetsk.
Now the trenches and dugouts at the battle sites are densely overgrown with bushes, and those events are almost not remembered. Therefore, we are driving through the villages, the names of which once resounded with the heavy front line of the Chernukhino-Debaltsevo operation, together with a participant in those events, to refresh our memory.
HEAVY ASSAULT
Our guide Nail Nurulin held the position of chief of staff of the South-Eastern Front in the winter of 2015, although he says that “in reality he is a simple volunteer.” He is truly a volunteer, he came to Donbass for his own personal reasons and stayed here forever. He says that he got used to it, became attached to the Lugansk region, and even got married again.
Nail Nurulin led the front headquarters during the battles for Chernukhino
Nail Sagitovich is a man with combat experience, who went through two years of war in Afghanistan and then served on the border in Tajikistan. Therefore, during the battles for Debaltsevo, the Ukrainian media mistook him for a career officer of the Russian Armed Forces, who was allegedly sent to Donbass by the GRU. Although Eustace—that’s the call sign Nurulin took—came to Lugansk to help his comrade in arms.
“He saved my life in Afghanistan. We always communicated with him on Skype. And in 2014, he stopped communicating, then my son contacted me and said that his father was severely shell-shocked and ended up in a coma. I arrived, dragged him to Moscow, and they sent him away there, ” Nail says about how it all began for him. — The commander of the “Rome” battalion, Alexander Gaidei, is the second soldier who served with me in Afghanistan. And he asked me to stay here. And after the Debaltsevo operation, I was offered the position of commandant of the republic.”
The first stop on our trip is a small forest or, as they say in the Donbass, a “landing” in the area of the settlements of Komissarovka and Sofievka. Together with Eustace, we climb the hill to look at the snow-covered mounds of old dugouts: it was at this point that the Rome battalion was located for three months before the start of the battles for Debaltsevo.
We walk through a clearing overgrown with tall dry grass, bushes and young trees, next to which there are rare old trees with broken trunks reminiscent of past shelling. Nail still knows the place well, actively gesticulates, points out where the LPR militia had a tank and an armored personnel carrier, where there was an observation post with a machine gun.
“All these mounds are dugouts. And this is my bunker. He's already overwhelmed here - the old soldier seems to be upset by such a mess in the positions. — This is a railway carriage, armored. We buried it, put slabs on top, such a dugout could withstand any shell hit. Unless he fell asleep too much, then there would be a mass grave. We brought electricity here from Komissarovka, there was a stove, I held all the meetings here.”
Here, nearby, during digging, the remains of dead Red Army soldiers were found along with rifles - they were reburied with honors. During the Great Patriotic War, the defense line passed here, and by symbolic coincidence, the Lugansk militia stood where Soviet soldiers once fought, and along the line of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ trenches there were German trenches.
On January 22, 2015, the Rome battalion moved forward through the gray zone that had previously separated it from the enemy. On other sides, on the same day, the entire front began to move: the legendary Pavel Dremov, together with the Cossacks of the 6th regiment, headed for Sanzharovka and Vergulevka, the Donetsk people launched an attack on Uglegorsk. A little later, near “Rome”, fighters from the famous “Ghost” brigade of Alexei Mozgovoy joined the attack on the Ukrainian forces.
We make a new stop at Depreradovka station. Once upon a time in these places there was an estate of the famous military leaders of Serbian origin, Depreradovich.
At the station, the railway tracks have already been restored, new supports have been installed next to the pillars cut by shrapnel. But the old station building is broken down. Nine years ago, after the transition to the offensive, the right defense flag of the Lugansk militia stretched from here to the so-called poultry house (Chernukhin poultry farm). Moreover, they managed to break into the station itself literally immediately.
Then things didn’t go so smoothly: on January 23 and 24, the battalion’s fighters, using three infantry fighting vehicles and a tank, tried to move further along the railway in order to go to the rear of the slag mountain - there was one of the enemy’s strongholds. But in the bridge area, two infantry fighting vehicles took off their shoes, losing their tracks, then Ukrainian self-propelled guns opened fire on the attacking group. We had to retreat to our original positions: as a result, Lugansk fighters stayed in the area of the station until mid-February, almost until the end of the Debaltsevo operation, because it was not possible to go through this area head-on. On the way, the “Rome” militia had a seriously fortified Ukrainian opornik.
Already being on the spot, I understand why they could not take him.
The militias nicknamed this Ukrainian position “tunnels,” and for good reason. There really are two large tunnels under the railway. The paths themselves are located on a high embankment. To get directly to the place from which the Ukrainian Armed Forces were monitoring our units, you have to climb a steep, icy slope - only one name remains of the stairs.
At the top we are greeted by the rust and devastation of nine years of age. Metal that has not completely collapsed periodically creaks in the wind. The silence does not interfere well with attempts to imagine how loudly the guns thundered in the surrounding area during the fighting.
“Their mortar battery and artillery were located here. And two self-propelled guns and two tanks were hidden in the tunnels, ” Nail points out. “ They drove along the road, fired at us, returned and hid again. From here they saw our “bird house”, all the bridges - everything was under fire. For a whole month we were still unable to destroy them. This building was two-story, high, it was an observation post. And there were also four or six wagons loaded with coal, that is, the dill were very well covered.”
Armed Forces equipment was hiding in tunnels under the railway
While we are going around the positions, Nail casually notes that he has walked up and down here, more than once. “They drank our blood here,” he says, again emphasizing how convenient this supporter was, he had advantages on all sides, which is why the Ukrainian military stood there until the last.
FEELING OF VICTORY
On the day of our trip to the LPR the weather was frosty, no less cold than during the assault on Debaltsevo. Fortunately, I have the opportunity to warm my hands by the stove in the car while we drive from one point to another. After the “tunnels” Eustace and I return back towards Chernukhino.
Before entering the village, we stop for five minutes at an abandoned building - at first glance, no one needs it. The building is located near the railway, and according to Nail, it turns out that in 2015 there was the headquarters of the Chernukha garrison of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Ukrainian officers began to flee from here around February 13–14, but before that they sat under the reliable protection of self-propelled guns, which fired at Lugansk fighters from the fields adjacent to the “piece of iron.” There were plenty of problems with snipers, but the militia still managed to get hold of the outskirts of Chernukhino.
The famous house of Baba Masha, about which I have heard a lot, also stands. The elderly woman was not afraid to remain alone on her edge of the village; she lived under shelling. And, it turns out, not in vain: at the right moment, she informed the militia about the Ukrainian DRG, which they managed to neutralize in time.
It’s amazing that such a shack survived those battles at all. The Ukrainian army generously showered this area with shells. And the small house became a point of attraction for Luhansk fighters: they could warm up and dry themselves in it before moving on to the firing positions. The path was not easy: through a gap in the concrete fence, past carriages and two railway tracks, it was necessary to go to the rear to the “slag”.
“If the shelling started, you would crawl under the carriage between the wheels, and the fragments could not penetrate these steel wheels. We lay back, when everything passed, we got up and ran on, ” Nail recalls. “ We came here, into the houses, fighting. On January 31, we carried out reconnaissance in force, identified Ukrainian firing points and bunkers, then an artillery strike was carried out here and on February 1 we launched an attack and entered the outermost houses of the village. They knocked the dill out of these houses.”
Then two tanks were knocked out, and the offensive ran into fierce resistance. Heavy losses began, and in the end the situation turned upside down: the militia fought off Ukrainian counterattacks for two weeks, from the other side they were literally bombarded with FOGs like rain.
But the Chernukhino-Debaltsevskaya epic, as our guide calls the operation, ended on February 18 with the victory of the forces of the People's Militia of the LPR and DPR. The cauldron was slammed shut, and it seemed to Nail that everything happened just yesterday. As if it was again necessary to hide from fire behind concrete walls, as if Ukrainian mortars were again firing at the square occupied by the militia, as if the wounded and dead were again. But it’s quiet near Baba Masha’s house.
“When it was all over, I woke up in the morning and couldn’t understand what was happening. Because there were no breaks. I even thought that I was deaf, so I clicked my fingers near my ears to check, ” Eustace recalls. “ I was then struck by the complete silence that reigned at the front. For a whole month something was buzzing, exploding, shooting, and then suddenly nothing. You could go crazy from this.”
But no one went crazy. After Debaltsevo there was a feeling of significant victory, comparable even to the joy of May 9. Then, in February 2015, there was a feeling that the war was over and no one else would die. The opportunity to help civilians who survived the fighting in their homes brought no less joy to the boys. According to him, deposits of various humanitarian aid were found at Ukrainian positions - they were given to all the locals. This was the very first, tiny step towards peace at least in this part of Donbass.
Now the fields on the outskirts of Chernukhino have been sown, the slightly disheveled houses on the neighboring streets have been patched up, some have been restored from scratch. The poultry farm is working. You can now enter the village along a flat road, although inside the settlement there are plenty of crooked paths. But life there is really recovering. And after any military victory, this is the most important thing.