Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Dmitry Steshin
[KP] Special report by Dmitry Steshin from the front near Donetsk
From Home to the Front - 20 Minutes
The enemy did not have time to take advantage of the last dry autumn days, at least here, near Donetsk. Since Sunday, the skies have dumped on Donbass all the moisture that has been accumulating for so long. Waiting for news, the front froze, even front-line asphalt roads turned into muddy rural country roads - each new “armor” pulled out new tons of dirt from fields and forest plantations.
With a comrade, a sniper with the call sign "Moskva", we agreed long ago that as soon as the rainy season begins, we will go and shoot the devices donated by the rear - the so-called "Muzzle brakes-compensators," such serious steel cylinders. They are screwed onto the cut of the barrel, fixed with a special latch. The sound of a shot is immediately half as low, and there is no flame at all, which the shooter unmasks.
I was going to film the shooting, because the home front should know that their expensive gifts were in good hands for their intended purpose.
It takes 20 minutes to drive from my house in Donetsk to the front. And early in the morning I found myself in a suburban village half-unwound by artillery. On the way, my dear friend almost happened to me: there was a feeling that our mortar, lurking in a completely Pushkin autumn forest, shot me right through the half-open window. The mortar fired harassing unanswered fire - the enemy was silent. Water dust hung in the sky - copters do not fly much in such weather, neither ours nor others.
They feed excellently: Potatoes, Butter, Condensed Milk
The snipers, from the threshold, offered me a choice: "chicken soup, tea, coffee or cocoa." It was a good sign. I perched on the ammo box with a mug of coffee and remarked semi-assertively:
- The food is good...
Didn't expect this kind of response.
- Generally excellent with feeding. The chief food officer says so: guys, what you need, say - potatoes, butter, condensed milk, rations, stop by, I'll give you.
- And you?
- We're taking something. Pike do not climb for a long time. Their quality has dipped a little in the last three years and it is simply forbidden to eat them all the time because of preservatives. So we ourselves go once a week to the city and buy food, then go here ...
They commemorated the Voronezh salad with an unkind word, it is supplied to the army in three-liter jars and is given out like that. It is difficult to describe the consistency of the salad, there are no censorship words. It can be seen that the guys have been thinking about this salad for a long time, indulging in dreams:
- Take the one who buys this salad for the army, - Moskva noted in their hearts, - put him in an isolated room and feed him only for three weeks ...
What about bread for salad?
- Of course, give out bread, we are not Bandera!
- Well, but in general?
- In general, we say - the feeding is excellent.
Intensity of Fights - As in the Great Patriotic War
We talked about the humanitarian. I participated in several missions, helped to deliver scopes with thermal imagers to “my” snipers. I was wondering how long such devices live on the front?
"Moscow" reassured me:
- For a long time? What are you! The sights that you brought in the summer, the guys hold by the heart! Everyone understands that without them you are blind, they take care.
A sniper rifle with a DTK (thus a muzzle brake-compensator) got into the car only diagonally. Somehow we got through and quietly set off to the shooting range. We crossed the old, broken border crossing, which coincided with the front line for eight years, and got out onto the Zaporozhye highway. Wet forest plantations lived their lives - the artillery continued to work despite the rain. Asked Moscow:
- How is it on the front (well, on the front line)?
- So far, nothing, no changes, we are on the defensive, what we are, what they are. It is still dry in the dugouts, the stoves have not yet been installed.
- Why? Spotted by drones with thermal imagers?
- No, it's not about drones, everyone thinks that Russia will attack soon. We've finally been filled. As you saw in the summer, this is no longer the case.
- Is the enemy active? - I will find out the latest news from the front on October 24, 2022.
- He's also on the defensive. As I understand it, they have one task near Donetsk - to hold their positions at any cost. Artillery rarely works, you can count it on your fingers. There is a feeling that they have chosen all the shells, Europe cannot supply more.
I was reading the memoirs of Moltke (chief of the German field headquarters in the First World War. - Auth.), In the same place, some colossal amount of ammunition went out every day. They were counted on wagons. And here for 8 months now there have been battles of the same intensity as in the Great Patriotic War.
Ukrainians are given pill pills -- "For vitality" in hands
We talked about the mood of the enemy, as far as they can be tracked by a sniper with his own eye and by radio intercepts. "Moscow" surprised me:
- According to their prisoners, it is felt that THEY are exhausted. So these prisoners do not tell anything particularly interesting. But there is one detail. They began to give out medicines in sets.
Relatively speaking: I was sad, I ate a red pill, I need to cheer up - blue, I wanted to sleep - white. But what kind of drugs, what they are called, the prisoners do not know. Issued without packaging, handfuls.
At the shooting range "Moscow" ordered:
- So, drive the car into this hollow, you don’t need to cover it with a net, they don’t fly today. Vooon, do you see the transformer box? Here we brought a rifle to a normal battle and before our eyes a mortar flew into it.
"Moskva" spread a special rug, put a backpack with ammunition under his arm, and took out a rangefinder binoculars. A battered "six" with Donetsk fighters drove off into our hollow, almost on its belly. The guys took out a simple copter and raised it into the gray low sky. The young fighter was showing the old man how to deal with him. The copter flew, "Moskva" fired, twisting the sight. And no one forced anyone to do this according to some kind of curricula drawn up in headquarters far from the front.
Everyone understood that without this they could not win, but they would have to win.
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