Town Mariinka is the regular “hot spot” on the demarcation line. The situation harshly become deteriorate here in the middle of the February. The positions of Armed Forces of Ukraine and civil houses were under permanent fire from the side of “DPR” insurgents. How town lives today is in the reportage of informator.lg.ua.
“They are there, – shows his hand in the direction of the forest, located near in kilometer as the crow flies, the soldier with the callsign Validol. – It’s seen even without binoculars, how they’re moving there”.
Fighters took up the positions in the abandoned stud. Former stables and farm buildings are now reliably protect pro-Russian terrorists.
“Last two and half weeks the shellings, which passed in battles, were daily in Mariinka… Fightings has been continuing for 3.5 – 4 hours. And on February 18, we had a 6 hours duration battle, – tells the commander of the 1st battalion of 14th brigade lieutenant colonel Mikhail Prokopiv. – There was an information, that that side wanted to capture Mariinka… They tried, but nothing succeeded”.
According to the words of militaries after that battle there were no attempts to attack from the side of insurgents. But, frankly saying, the residents of the town can only dream about silence:
“We have battles almost every evening. Everything begins in the evening, after the darkness… And continues three-four hours. Except small arms, enemy began to use mortars. In particular, on February 18 our positions were shelled from 82-mm mortars… We’re using only small arms… In principle, they were using small arms too till 18th, there were no accidents that they threw us with mines. Militaries consider that maybe in this way Russian Army passes a polygon practice”.
“But they did not shoot very accurately – 80% of shells are off the mark, including hits in civil houses”, say militaries. The confirmation of these words could be find around town, here splinters damaged gates, there windows are broken.
7 houses were damaged and one man was wounded in time of last shellings. House on Shevchenko street. Roof or rather what was left of it is lying in front of the gates. Here is also washstand, punched through by a shell splinter
“Pop, flash without smoke and roof flew out, – tells the owner of a house Svetlana. – Firefighters were called four times, but nobody came. Thanks to neighbors, if there weren’t anybody, I do not know what it would happen”.
Closer to the evening Mariinka, already is not very crowded, finally empties.
“We sit in the evenings, don’t turn light and TV… Sit and wait… When it begins, at 5-6 pm and till 1 pm… Today, it wasn’t, but almost every day”, tells local 81 year old pensioner Maria Stepanovna.
The house of woman is opposite the “DPR” positions.
“Look around – all trees are beaten, there were nuts, and it’s everything that left from the garden – apples are beaten, mulberry worthless, entire slate beat on the fence, – says woman. – My children live one in Nizhniy Novgorod, other in Donetsk… They wanted to take me away, but I didn’t want to. I don’t want to leave my house, acquired. I live with my neighbor now. Her house was totally destroyed, so she lives with me”.
It looks like lethal ‘souvenirs’ are in every yard of Mariinka.
“Here they are, these things flew in our yard”, tells local Larisa, showing stabilizer from the grenade charge.
A few cats and dogs are running in the yard of a woman.
“We even don’t know their names. A lot neighbors went out and left them… And they’re extending to people… They came to us and we left them in our house”.
There is relatively quiet in the town, only small arms are seldom.However, even now, when shellings almost stopped, the rumors about “capturing of the city” are continuing to spread. The information about ‘evacuation’ of Mariinka appeared in the web on Wednesday.
“The situation is specially injected, – considers the worker of a local house of creativity Alina Kosse. – Somebody needs it very much. But everything is normal at us. Children went to school. Everything is as usual…”
A. Bukhalo for informator.lg.ua