BAKHMUT, Ukraine — In a forest near the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast some 700 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, there is a cozy-looking tent camp with neat brick paths snaking between the trees.
While the Donbas basks in its usual summer heat, here there is usually a pleasant breeze, and the air is fresh. The sounds of fighting are now seldom heard in this area — the frontline of Russia’s war against Ukraine is tens of kilometers to the south.
But this is not a forest campground — a place to spend a weekend or more to escape the city heat. Among the tall pine trees, hidden in protective dugouts covered with camouflaged netting, are a dozen T-72 and T-64 tanks.
The tanks are from an armored company belonging to Ukraine’s 53rd Mechanized Brigade, which has made this quiet patch of woodland its home.
Although there is sporadic fighting here and there at the frontline, according to the Minsk II peace agreement these tanks and those of the Russian-led forces must stay at least 15 kilometers away from the contact line.
In it together
Kept away from the front, the Ukrainian tankmen have diverted their energies into making their temporary home as comfortable as possible. Few other soldiers at war have the conveniences they enjoy.
“We’ve been here for over four months already,” says the company’s commander, Lieutenant Vasyl Melnyk, who goes by the codename “The Beard.” Last spring, when his company was ordered to set camp in the forest, “there was nothing but pine trees, grass and hedgehogs,” he says.
“Our company is not engaged in combat now, so we decided to roll up our sleeves and make this place really comfortable — we’re going to stay here for a long time,” the commander says. A robust young man with a chinstrap beard, he is trailed everywhere by his pet, a restless red-and-white puppy called Zeus.
The tankmen live in simple field tents, their sides weighted down and made windproof by heavy chunks of wood. Five or six men live in each one, every man having his own folding bed, and although their tents are rather crowded, no one complains.
“In their tanks, crew members all fight shoulder to shoulder, together as one in closed space — so we’re not afraid of crowding,” the tankmen say
Like many other Ukrainians at war, they love decorating their sleeping accommodation with Ukrainian flags and combat jacks signed by comrades whom they have met while on service. There are also photos of loved ones and children’s drawings, inscribed with wishes that they get home safe.
As dusk falls on the camp, most of the tank crews are already resting. Tired out by their daytime duties, the tank crews sleep, covered with camouflaged jackets, don’t even wake up when their commander enters their tent.
Georgian’s Inn
Three times a day, the soldiers make their way to a wooden structure with a long dining table covered by a tent roof — the camp’s mess hall.
The soldiers think of their military camp as a little village, and a fancy red sign is seen on the camp cookhouse. It reads “Georgian’s Inn.”
“’Georgian is our cook,” Melnyk says. “We decided to name this sacred institution after him.”
At the mess hall, there is always a smell of cooking: “Georgian” must be ready to welcome a group of hungry soldiers at his “inn” from early in the morning until the last thing at night. The commander says they are fed very well — apart from the standard army food supplies, local civilian volunteers bring homemade delicacies such as goat’s cheese.
To store food supplies, the tankmen built underground root cellars, now filled with sacks of potatoes, onions and canned meat — a set of supplies that a skilled military cook can feed an army with.
There are also two bath houses in the camp, one of which is a simple mobile unit of the type normally provided by the army, while the other is a wooden structure with a steam-room and a laundry.
The soldiers have also put effort into keeping fit, having built their own gym.
Right next to the laundry, the tankmen constructed wooden parallel bars for morning exercises. There there is a pull-up bar — a simple metal crowbar nailed between two pine woods, and a makeshift weight machine with which a soldier can pump his arm muscles by lifting heavy tank tracks segments.
But the gem of this outdoor forest gym is a barbell that the soldiers jointly bought in the city last spring.
Tired of walking along paths made muddy by rain, the tankmen have built neat paths of red bricks between all of the camp’s structures, adding to the camp’s air of permanence. They also have a small animal enclosure, where a couple of pigs are being fattened in time for the next New Year celebrations.
A Ukrainian tankman does his washing at a laundry tent in a forest military encampment near the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast on July 28. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Solar power
There is even an electricity supply to each tent — but not from the city grid. Instead, the company generates its own power from generators and bank of solar panels.
The seven-or-so panels, each 40 by 70 centimeters in size, can produce a 50 Volt supply of power. They are installed on wooden racks around the camp.
“They are not very high-powered,” civilian volunteer Volodymyr Kurilo says. “They are very useful though. Each of them can power several lightbulbs, and can be used for charging mobile phones or using a laptop. In fact, each panel provides absolutely free energy for one soldiers’ tent. I’m sure the army should have them all along the frontline.”
Although the panels are helpful, the company still needs to use some of its fuel on power generators — a loud rattling can be sometimes heard near the unit’s command post.
“Want to see a trick?” Kurilo says as he pulls his smartphone out of his pocket. “This company’s base is a free Wi-Fi zone.”
A simple white wireless router on a desk in the command post covers much of the camp with an Internet connection of some 1–3 megabits per second via an aerial set up in a tall tree — another present from civilian volunteers.
“It’s not perfect, but at least these guys can talk to their families via Skype every day,” the volunteer says. “It means a lot (to them).”
Indeed, when off duty, the tankmen often sit on benches they have made near the much-appreciated Wi-Fi spot and read the news headlines aloud on their smartphones, joking with each other.
Neglected
However, while the tankmen have done their best to make themselves comfortable, they complain that the military has done little to help them.
Most of the company’s tanks now sit in dugouts, camouflaged with khaki tents and partially dismantled for endless repairs. The powerful armored machines rarely move now — the commander says his unit is seriously undersupplied and receives insufficient technical support.
“We’re all fed up with this,” Melnyk says as he leans against a T-72 tank. “Our repairers work day and night, but we simply cannot get our machines into shape. I’m constantly making requests for the necessary parts or component for my tanks, but get virtually nothing. For our commanders it’s much easier to ignore us, rather than taking on the headache of providing us with all we need.”
“The T-72 is a nice machine, even if it is an old Soviet thing,” the commander goes on, stroking the tank’s reactive armor cells. “But it needs sophisticated care. For instance, I’ve been trying to call out engineers to fix our vehicle electronics for months — with no results. While our country’s leadership talks about switching to NATO standards in Ukraine’s army by 2020, we fall short of very basic technical stuff.”
“In real life, virtually all of my tanks now have some fault that could be fatal in action. How am I supposed to lead my people into battle if the enemy comes?”
