DOVZHANSKIY, Ukraine – Dozens of spent bullet cartridges strewn across pavement scarred by the tracks of armored vehicles. A café and auto body shop blown to bits, their bricks and mortar reduced to rubble. The letters that make up the name of this country – Ukraine – hanging by a thread from atop the Dovzhanskiy border crossing here on the frontier with Russia in far eastern Luhansk Oblast
This was the scene on July 2, a day
after Ukrainian government forces reclaimed the critical checkpoint at the
country’s border with Russia following a fierce firefight with pro-Russian
rebels on July 1.
President Petro Poroshenko called the operation
to recover the Dovzhanskiy border crossing the “first victory” after the
restart of Ukraine’s campaign to quash the separatist uprising in Donetsk and
Luhansk oblasts. In fact, it was perhaps the military’s biggest achievement in
recent days – maybe weeks – as the crossing is believed to have been a route for
the transport of rebel reinforcements from Russia to Ukraine.
Firmly in control on July 2, border
guards worked to repair what they could at the border crossing and built up
barricades with sandbags in front of two armored vehicles, the barrels of their
machineguns aimed toward the rebels who had retreated to a checkpoint some 21
kilometers down the highway.
A border guard who asked that his name
not be used in this story to ensure his safety gave the Kyiv Post a tour of the
crumbling border crossing, pointing out damage to guard shacks and special
machines used to check vehicles passing from Ukraine to Russia.
Due to the damage and the ongoing fight
against the rebels, the Dovzhanskiy border crossing would remain closed
indefinitely – as well as every other border crossing in Luhansk Oblast, he
said. The Kyiv Post could not confirm that all other border crossings were
closed.
The border guard made it more than apparent
to two men who had hoped to pass through on their way to Rostov-on-Don, Russia,
where they said family was awaiting their arrival, that they would not be able
to pass.
“You’re not going to
walk across, drive across, fly across. There is no way you’re going across,” he
explained to them.
He and his fellow guards reclaimed the border post just after 11 a.m. on July
1, he said, explaining that the gunfight that ensued when they rolled up in
armored vehicles was “intense.” The large casings scattered around, the blown-out
windows of surrounding buildings and the bullet-riddled guardrails along the
highway appeared to prove his account.
Despite the ferocity of the clash, no
Ukrainian government fighters suffered injuries, nor were any killed, the
border guard said, adding that he couldn’t speak for the rebels. However, days earlier one of their
armored vehicles drove over a landmine that exploded beneath it, wounding
“several” servicemen, he said.
Two hundred Ukrainian servicemen and law enforcement personnel have been killed and 619 wounded in eastern Ukraine since the anti-terrorist operation began in April, the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council said on July 2.
Following the border guards’ seizure
of the border crossing, a minesweeper found some 35 landmines planted by the
rebels, according to the border guard who spoke with the Kyiv Post. He swiped
through photographs taken with his smartphone of the landmines, as well as
other improvised explosives abandoned by the rebels during the gunfight.
The rebels also left crates of
Molotov cocktails when they fled, the border guard said, pointing to one such
crate.
Meanwhile, only 21 kilometers west on the same highway, nervous rebels milled
about at the Dyakovskiy intersection block post, inspecting passing cars and reinforcing their post with large cement
slabs.
A woman named Natasha, who declined
to give her last name, showed the Kyiv Post a pile of twisted rocket remains
she claimed were Grad missiles fired at them by Ukrainian forces on June 30. She
said no one was injured when the missiles struck the earth surrounding their
position.
Ukrainian forces have been seen transporting heavy artillery, including Grad rocket systems, to the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. But the rebels, too, have been seen transporting the rocket systems, which are known for being deadly and inaccurate.
As Natasha was speaking, several
muffled explosions were heard from somewhere nearby, which she said were more
Grad missiles.
“Hear that? Those are Grads,” she
said. The sound was punctuated by sporadic bursts of gunfire that echoed
through the rolling steppe.
Kyiv Post editor Christopher J. Miller
can be reached at [email protected]
and on Twitter at @ChristopherJM.
Editor’s Note: This article has
been produced with travel support from www.mymedia.org.ua, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark and implemented
by a joint venture between NIRAS and BBC Media Action, as well as Ukraine Media
Project, managed by Internews and funded by the United States Agency for
International Development. The content is independent of these organizations
and is solely the responsibility of the Kyiv Post.
