by Dmitry Trenin, RT, 5/13/24

Two and a half years into its war against the West in Ukraine, Russia certainly finds itself on a course toward a new sense of itself.

This trend actually predated the military operation but has been powerfully intensified as a result. Since February 2022, Russians have lived in a wholly new reality. For the first time since 1945, the country is really at war, with bitter fighting ongoing along a 2,000-kilometer front line, and not too far from Moscow. Belgorod, a provincial center near the Ukrainian border, is continuously subjected to deadly missile and drone attacks from Kiev’s forces.

Occasionally, Ukrainian drones reach far deeper inland. Yet, Moscow and other big cities continue as if there were no war, and (almost) no Western sanctions either. Streets are full of people and shopping malls and supermarkets offer the usual abundance of goods and food items. One could conclude that Moscow and Belgorod are a tale of two countries, that Russians have managed to live simultaneously both in wartime and peacetime.

This would be a wrong conclusion. Even the part of the country that ostensibly lives ‘in peace’ is markedly different from what it was before the Ukraine conflict began. The central focus of post-Soviet Russia – money – has not been eliminated, of course, but has certainly lost its unquestionable dominance. When many people – not only soldiers but civilians, too – are getting killed, other, non-material values are coming back. Patriotism, reviled and derided in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, is re-emerging in force. In the absence of fresh mobilization, hundreds of thousands of those who sign contracts with the military are motivated by a desire to help the country. Not just by what they can get from it.

Russian popular culture is shedding – slowly, perhaps, but steadily – the habit of imitating what’s hot in the West. Instead, the traditions of Russian literature, including poetry, film, music are being revived and developed. A spike in domestic tourism has opened to ordinary Russians the treasures of their own country – until recently neglected, as a thirst for travel abroad was quenched. (Foreign travel is still available, but difficult logistics make reaching other parts of Europe far less easy than before).

Politically, there is no opposition to speak of against the current system. Almost all of its former figureheads are abroad, and Alexey Navalny has died in prison. A lot of former cultural icons who, after February 2022, decided to emigrate to Israel, Western Europe, or elsewhere, are fast becoming yesterday’s celebrities, as the country moves on. Those Russian journalists and activists who criticize Russia from afar are increasingly losing touch with their previous audiences, and are saddled with accusations of serving the interests of countries fighting Russia in the proxy war in Ukraine. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of young men who left Russia in 2022 for fear of being mobilized have returned, some of them quite embittered by their experience abroad.

Putin’s statement about the need for a new national elite, and his promotion of war veterans as the core of that elite, is more of an intention than a real plan at this stage, but the Russian elite is definitely going through a massive turnover. Many liberal tycoons essentially no longer belong to Russia; their desire to keep their assets in the West has ended up separating them from their native country.

Those who stayed in Russia know that yachts in the Med, villas on the Cote d’Azur, and mansions in London are no longer available to them, or at least no longer safe to keep. Within Russia, a new model of a mid-level businessperson is emerging: one who combines money with social engagement (not the ESG model), and who builds his/her future inside the country.

Russian political culture is returning to its fundamentals. Unlike that of the West, but somewhat similar to the East – it is based on the model of a family. There is order, and there is a hierarchy; rights are balanced by responsibilities; the state is not a necessary evil but the principal public good and the top societal value. Politics, in the Western sense of a constant, often no-holds-barred competition, is viewed as self-serving and destructive; instead, those who are entrusted with being at the helm of the state are expected to arbitrate, to ensure harmony of various interests, etc. Of course, this is an ideal rather than reality. In reality things are more complex and complicated, but the traditional political culture, at its core, is alive and well, and the last 30 to 40 years, while hugely instructive and impactful, have not overturned it.

Russian attitudes to the West are also complex. There is appreciation of Western classical and modern (but not so much post-modern) culture, the arts and technology, and of living standards to an extent. Recently, the previously unadulterated positive image of the West as a society has been spoiled by the aggressive promotion of LGBTQ values, of cancel culture, and the like. What has also changed is the view of Western policies, politics and especially politicians, which have lost the respect most Russians once had for them. The view of the West as Russia’s hereditary adversary has again gained prominence – not primarily because of Kremlin propaganda, but as a function of the West’s own policies, from providing Ukraine with weapons that kill Russian soldiers and civilians, to sanctions which in many ways are indiscriminate, to attempts to cancel Russian culture or to bar Russians from world sports. This hasn’t resulted in Russians viewing individual Westerners as enemies, but the political/media West is widely seen here as a house of adversaries.

There is a clear need for a set of guiding ideas about “who we are,” “where we are in this world” and “where we are going.” However, the word ‘ideology’ is too closely linked in many people’s mind with the rigidity of Soviet Marxism-Leninism. Whatever finally emerges will probably be built on the values-led foundation of traditional religions, starting with Russian Orthodoxy, and will include elements from our past, including the pre-Petrine, imperial, and Soviet periods. The current confrontation with the West makes it imperative that some kind of a new ideological concept finally emerges, in which sovereignty and patriotism, law and justice take a central role. Western propaganda pejoratively refers to it as “Putinism” but, for most Russians, it may be simply described as “Russia’s way.”

Of course, there are people unhappy with policies that have deprived them of certain opportunities. Particularly if those people’s interests are largely in money and individual wealth. Those in this group who have not gone abroad are sitting quietly, harbor misgivings and privately hope that somehow, at whatever cost to others, the “good old days” come back. They are likely to be disappointed. As for the changes within the elite, Putin is aiming to infuse fresh blood and vigor into the system.

It doesn’t look like some sort of ‘purge’ is coming. The changes, nonetheless, will be substantial, given the age factor. Most of the current incumbents in the top places are in their early 70s. Within the next six to ten years these positions will go to younger people. Ensuring that Putin’s legacy lives on is a major task for the Kremlin. Succession is not merely an issue of who eventually emerges in the top position, but what kind of ‘ruling generation’ comes in.

A more positive take from Varoli. I hope he’s right. – Natylie

By John Varoli, Substack, 6/3/24

Last week, the White House stirred up a media frenzy about allowing Kiev to use U.S. weapons to attack sites “inside Russia”, though ostensibly only regarding the HIMARS short-range missile launcher system to hit targets in the Belgorod Region.

What’s behind this decision? Strategically it changes little. So, most likely it’s part of a media campaign to boost Biden’s dismal ratings, to deflect from NATO’s battlefield defeats and to galvanize public opinion in an election year amid the White House’s failed crusade against Russia.

On May 30, the New York Times wrote: “President Biden, in a major shift pressed by his advisers and key allies, has authorized Ukraine to conduct limited strikes inside Russia with American-made weapons, opening what could well be a new chapter in the war for Ukraine. Mr. Biden’s decision appears to mark the first time that an American president has allowed limited military responses on artillery, missile bases and command centers inside the borders of a nuclear-armed adversary.”

No, there won’t be any “new chapter in the war for Ukraine”. As often, the NYT dutifully labors on behalf of the White House to create the illusion that NATO/ Kiev will be able to turn the tide against Russia and then ethnically cleanse the Donbass and Crimea regions of its Russian-speaking population.

The stark reality is that over the past 12 months, the U.S., UK, France and several other NATO states have been helping Kiev to bomb Russian cities, military bases and industrial infrastructure. For example, in summer 2023 the UK began to supply Kiev with Storm Shadow missiles as part of efforts to terrorize south Russian cities.

On May 30, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg admitted that several NATO states “never imposed any” restrictions on the use of their weapons, by which he meant the UK, France and Czech Republic. The latter’s “Vampire” multiple rocket launcher has often been used in Kiev’s terrorist attacks against Russia’s Belgorod Region that have killed many people at family events and city markets.

Meanwhile, for the past 18 months the U.S. Army’s HIMARS system has been used by Kiev to commit numerous war crimes throughout Donbass, especially in the city of Donetsk, where public markets and other civilian areas are often targeted, leaving many dozens dead and injured.

Kiev’s missile and drone attacks over the past year were only possible thanks to U.S. support, primarily real-time battlefield intelligence from Pentagon satellites and Reaper drones operating over the Black Sea. Also, earlier this year the NYT revealed that the CIA plays a direct role in attacks against Russia, which is why the U.S. is now widely considered to be a leading sponsor of terrorism.

Many American experts have erroneously described the recent White House decision to attack “inside Russia” as a watershed that could lead to World War 3. I disagree. Russia won’t take the bait because it’s already winning the war. Time is on Russia’s side. Zelensky’s unpopular regime is collapsing, and there’s also the possibility that all of NATO will go down with him.

Moscow’s reaction to the May 30th announcement to strike “inside Russia” has been relatively mild. Why? First, Russia’s powerful air defenses have been able to deal successfully with most U.S./ NATO missiles and drones; and in general there have been many reports of NATO missiles’ overall poor technical performance, especially when faced with Russian jamming.

Second, Moscow realizes that the White House has a wider plan to ignite the world on fire and kill as many people as possible. Thus, President Putin will continue to exercise the restraint he has shown over the ten years of the Donbass conflict. Moscow only responds by punishing NATO’s offensive capabilities inside Ukraine, never hitting infrastructure and command centers inside NATO, even though international law gives Moscow that right.

Putin’s response last week sounded menacing but don’t expect any threat to be carried out: “Officials from NATO countries, especially the smaller European countries, should be fully aware of what is at stake. Before talking about ‘striking deep into Russian territory,’ they should remember that their countries are small and densely populated. This unending escalation can lead to serious consequences.”

NATO certainly won’t heed that message. In February 2022, Putin warned the West to stay out of Ukraine, but that was quickly ignored. Then in September 2022 Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that if the U.S. supplied Kiev with longer-range missiles, it would cross a “red line” and become “a party to the conflict”. Again, NATO crossed the red line with impunity.

Then, in October 2023, Putin labeled U.S. supplies to Kiev of long-range tactical ballistic missiles (ATACMs) “another mistake by the U.S.” But no punishment was ever carried out, further giving the West reason to believe that Russia is weak. Moscow truly has a credibility problem.

The White House is goading Russia, hoping Moscow will make a rash step — such as a direct attack on a NATO country — in order to justify the start of World War 3. Such a war would play into the hands of the failed Biden presidency, which eagerly seeks a substantial reason to call off the presidential election in November and to decree martial law at home. World War 3 would certainly be that reason.

The U.S. and its Kiev proxy will continue to try to escalate the conflict, sending tens of thousands of forcefully conscripted young men to die in Zelensky’s meat grinder. As someone who worked with Ukraine for nearly 15 years, I’m speechless at how that nation has been brainwashed to die for a blatant fraud and con artist as Zelensky.

The war in Ukraine and all major events of the past five years (such as Covid 19) leads one to conclude that modern western liberalism is a death cult — developing deadly biological weapons, inciting wars across the globe, and subjugating freedom-loving nations that won’t bow to its ‘progressive’ gods. This destructive ideology has brought the world to the edge of a nuclear war in its obsession for global domination to forge its Orwellian “rules-based order”.

History, however, is clear — totalitarian ideologies that seek global domination eventually fail and collapse through internal and external pressures. Internally, the U.S. is plunging into chaos as a feeble and demented president tries in vain to stamp out the last flames of American freedom; internationally the Global South looks to Russia, China and India in a bid to stop the manic ambitions of the West.

We are witnessing one of the most epic confrontations in human history. Truly a glorious time to be alive.

RT, 6/6/24

Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered an overview of how he sees the Ukraine conflict’s roots and where the crisis may be headed, as well as the prospects of peace and speculation about a full-fledged war with NATO, as he spent over three hours answering a wide range of questions from representatives of international news agencies on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Wednesday.

1. Zelensky’s questionable legitimacy

Putin argued that the crisis stems from a US-backed coup that overthrew Kiev’s elected government in 2014. “Everyone believes that Russia started the war in Ukraine. But no one – I want to emphasize this – no one in the West, in Europe, wants to remember how this tragedy began. It began with a coup in Ukraine – an unconstitutional coup d’etat.”

Zelensky ‘seized power’ in Ukraine – PutinREAD MORE: Zelensky ‘seized power’ in Ukraine – Putin

Now Vladimir Zelensky’s legitimacy has also come under question, as according to Ukrainian laws his powers were supposed to be transferred to the country’s parliament after his term as president ended last month, Putin argued. He suggested that Western backers may “tolerate” and keep Zelensky around long enough to force through more unpopular policies – like lowering the conscription age all the way down to 18 – then oust him, possibly as early as next spring. “They have several candidates to replace him.”

2. ‘Bulls**t’ NATO claims

Asked about NATO’s preparations to defend against a possible Russian “invasion,” Putin suggested that Western governments are spreading absurd and false fears to help maintain their global hegemony.

“Look, someone has imagined that Russia wants to attack NATO,” he said. “Have you gone completely insane? Are you as thick as this table? Who came up with this nonsense, this bulls**t?”

3. ‘Asymmetric’ measures loom

Putin called out the US and other NATO members for supplying long-range missiles targeting deep into Russian territory. He warned that such escalations could backfire for the West as Moscow weighs its options.

“If someone deems it possible to supply such weapons to the war zone, to strike our territory…, why shouldn’t we supply similar weapons to those regions of the world where they will be used against sensitive sites of these countries?” Putin asked. “We can respond asymmetrically. We will give it a thought.”

4. How the conflict could end

The administration of US President Joe Biden could quickly stop the fighting in Ukraine by halting the flow of weapons to Kiev, Putin said. He told journalists that he had received a letter from Biden regarding the crisis, and he replied by arguing that the bloodshed would stop within two to three months if munitions shipments are cut off.

Russian leaders have repeatedly claimed that Ukraine’s Western military backers are merely prolonging the conflict without changing its outcome.

5. US election offers little hope

Putin said Russia has no expectation of serious policy changes resulting from this year’s US presidential election. Even if Biden loses to Republican challenger Donald Trump, relations with Moscow will likely remain antagonistic. “Basically, we don’t care (who wins),” the Russian leader said.

Biden’s administration is tearing down the US political system by using the courts to prosecute Trump, Putin added. “They are burning themselves from the inside.” In any case, he said, the new US administration would have to abandon Washington’s focus on “global liberalism” and hegemony – instead prioritizing the interests of the American people – to enable a major shift in foreign policy.

“No one is interested in Ukraine in the United States,” Putin said. “They are interested in the greatness of the United States. They are not fighting for Ukraine; they are fighting for their leadership in the world. They do not want Russia to be successful, to prevail, because they think it will be damaging for the leadership of the United States.”

6. Germany lost sovereignty

Putin also painted a bleak picture of Moscow’s relationship with Germany. Berlin’s supplying of tanks and missiles to Kiev has destroyed Russo-German relations, he said, and providing long-range weapons for strikes on Russian territory could lead to “very serious problems.”

Germany has allowed the US to devastate its economy by blowing up the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines and imposing failed sanctions against Russia, Putin claimed. The US also controls the flow of information in Germany, he added. “No one is trying to protect German interests. Germany is not sovereign, but there are Germans, and someone has to think of their interests.”

YouTube link here.

by Guy Mettan, The Floutist, 5/11/24

When I first read Guy Mettan’s report from Donbas I felt as if he had transported me to an antipodean universe of some kind. You can take this, as I do, as a measure of how prevalently, as in wall-to-wall, Western media have systematically misrepresented the Donbas region—when they represent it at all, this is to say. I was at once astonished and voraciously curious to read Mettan’s account of his travels to the two republics of the formerly Ukrainian region, which voted in referenda in September 2022 to join the Russian Federation.

Mettan is based in Geneva and travels often, a little in the way of what the French call le grand rapporteur—the accomplished correspondent who has established his authority in the course of a long career. When I met Mettan at a Geneva café the other day to discuss publication of his Donbas report I asked, “What did you expect to find?” It seemed an important question. Mettan immediately smiled. “Nothing,” he said. “I had no expectations whatsoever.”

Good, I recall thinking. A blank slate. A project so counter to the orthodoxy as this would not otherwise work.  

This is a very rare account, rare for its objectivity, a look at a place and a people we are not supposed to see from a journalist of long experience. We at The Floutist are pleased to welcome Guy Mettan into our pages.

This is the first of a two-part series. The second part of Mettan’s report will appear shortly.

—P.atrick Lawrence, May 11

Guy Mettan

Guy Mettan is an independent journalist based in Geneva and a member of the Grand Council of the Canton of Geneva, over which he presided in 2010. He has previously worked at the Journal de Genève, Le Temps stratégique, Bilan, and Le Nouveau Quotidien. He subsequently served as director and editor-in-chief of Tribune de Genève. In 1996, Mettan founded Le Club suisse de la presse, of which he was president and later director from 1998 to 2019.

DONESTK—How could they do this to us? Why does Kiev want to destroy us?

These are the questions that the people of Donbas have been asking themselves for the past 10 years. Considered from Switzerland or France, they may seem incongruous, as we are so used to believing that only Ukrainians are suffering from the war with Russia. We don’t want to know that the battle has been going on for a decade and has primarily affected the civilian population of Donbas.

For a week in April, I was able to criss-cross the two provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, visiting towns that had been destroyed and those that were being rebuilt, meeting refugees, and talking to people. This is my report.

I have no doubt that this piece will offend many people who are used to seeing the world in black and white. To them I would say what John Steinbeck and Robert Capa said to their detractors when they visited Stalin’s Russia in 1947, at the beginning of the Cold War: I am simply bearing witness, reporting what I saw and heard on the other side of the front. Then it’s up to everyone to form an opinion.

Mine is that Russia and the people of Donbas will never stop fighting until they have won.

This project began in a very Russian way, through an unlikely chain of circumstances. Nine years ago, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital, I met a Tajik entrepreneur from Moscow who was marrying off his daughter. He didn’t speak English and, without paying any attention to my miserable Russian, he invited the delegation I chaired, comprised of Swiss business people, to the wedding. I made a short speech in honour of the bride and her parents.

Since then, Umar Ikromovitch has become a close friend, one that neither distance nor the linguistic barrier could separate. Once or twice a year, on important holidays, he sends me a message via Telegram. In February, I was surprised when he invited me to join him to tour his work in Donbas, a region he had never visited before. Umar is an entrepreneurial builder—of roads, playgrounds, sports fields, and the like. His company employs several hundred workers in the Moscow region and a few dozen in the reconstruction of Donbas.

So, at 3 a.m. on 3 April, he and Nikita, one of his friends from the Russian Ministry of Defence, were waiting for me outside Vnukovo airport to begin our drive to Donbas. Nikita (and it is best I do not give his surname) had prepared the programme and provided the necessary permits, as well as an experienced driver, Volodia. For 10 hours, with a short coffee break at a newly opened petrol station, we drove at breakneck speed down the 1,060 kilometres of the “Prigozhin motorway,” as I nickname it, between Moscow and Rostov-on-Don—the same motorway on which the late leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had set out upon with his tanks last July.

Nothing could be simpler than a Russian motorway. They are always straight. There’s not a single bend along the Prigozhin motorway until you reach Rostov. And as the motorway is clear, apart from 50 kilometres of roadworks shortly before Rostov, the journey was quick and effortless, allowing us to travel from the last snows of Moscow to the soft spring of the Sea of Azov in less than half a day. We saw a steady stream of lorries and a few military convoys, although not many of the latter.

In Rostov, the bustling port and congested capital of southern Russia, we barely had a chance to put down our luggage and take three steps before setting off on our first visit. This was to an enormous pumping and turbine station, located at the mouth of the River Don some 20 kilometres from the city.

Workers are still finishing the external work. Two gigantic tubes, dozens of 20,000 m3 tanks, and eight pumping stations, each with 11 turbines, now transport fresh water to Donetsk, 200 kilometres away, which is deprived of drinking water because of the embargo Ukraine has imposed. Everything is automated. The 3,700 workers started as soon as the republics were reintegrated into the mother country, in November 2022, and finished the huge worksite and the construction of the high-voltage line powering the turbines six months later, in April 2023.

My first conclusion is that, after such rapid and colossal investments, Russia’s will to fight until its final victory seems unshakeable. And I don’t think Russia will ever again agree to separate itself from the Donbas. This territory is now Russian, full stop.

As night fell, we seated ourselves at a table in one of Rostov’s most popular brasseries, facing the peaceful River Don. It was to be a quiet night, and we slept soundly. The following night, with 40 Ukrainian missiles fired at the nearby Morozov’s air base, would prove more animated.

The next morning we set off for Mariupol, 180 kilometres and three hours away. After Taganrog, a small port near the river’s mouth, the road runs alongside the Sea of Azov and is jammed with convoys of lorries coming and going from Donbas. The road is currently being widened. Military vehicles are clearly marked with a “V” or a “Z”—Roman letters, not Cyrillic, adopted at the start of Russia’s intervention to signify victory.

Checkpoints and various controls succeed one another on either side of the Russian border with the Republic of Donetsk. On the side of the road, long convoys wait to be searched. Thanks to our passes, we are soon on ex–Ukrainian territory. Yevgeny, a Russian from Vladivostok who has volunteered for the Donetsk Republic, takes over. He will be our guide and interpreter throughout our stay.

Shortly before noon we reach the outskirts of Mariupol and enter the zone of Azovstal, the vast steel complex that was totally devastated early in the war. The factory now is nothing but rusting chimneys, tangles of burst pipes, and twisted ironwork. A vision of apocalypse that immediately evokes the Stalingrad tractor factory of Vasily Grossman, the Red Army war correspondent, and Steinbeck and Capa’s Journey to Russia. None of the surrounding houses and apartment blocks survived.

The city centre, however, has survived the war much better: At first glance, half of it was destroyed, half survived. Mariupol is currently undergoing a major renovation. In the central square, the reconstruction of the famous theatre—bombed or blown up, we’re not sure—is due to be completed by the end of the year. Umar is happy: The children and young mothers have already taken over the park and playground that his company has just completed. The bus routes, with buses donated by the city of St Petersburg, have been re-established. The café terraces have reopened.

Then we head back to the west of the city, which offers a very different landscape. Everything here is new. The old districts have already been renovated; new districts, clusters of buildings, a school, a nursery, and a hospital have all been built in less than a year. A lady walking with her dog tells us that she just moved into her brand new flat a fortnight ago, after living for months in a slum without running water.

Supervised by the Russian Ministry of Defence’s Military Construction Company, with the help of Russian towns and provinces, work goes on day and night. Ten thousand residents have already been rehoused and the town has regained two-thirds of its prewar population of 300,000. In the afternoon, we will visit a second 60–bed hospital, completely new and demountable – designed to be taken apart and moved if the need arises. They are very well equipped and run by volunteer doctors from all over Russia.

The most spectacular buildings, however, are the schools.

On the seafront, a new naval academy will welcome its first class of cadets at the start of the new academic year in September. Classrooms, dormitories, sports halls, and training facilities: Four gleaming glass-and-steel buildings have been completed in 10 months. Designed to accommodate 560 uniformed pupils aged 11 to 17, I am told they will take in mainly orphans from the two wars in Donbas, 2014–2022 and 2022–2024. With six days of instruction per week, eight to 10 hours a day, there’s hardly time to get bored. At the end of the course, students can either continue their training in the navy or enter a civilian university.

A second school is more traditional but even more spectacular. It’s an experimental school, the like of which has never been seen before in Russia (or in Switzerland, to my knowledge). The design is very sophisticated. The classrooms are equipped with the latest technology, including computers, robots, cyber– and nanotechnologies, and artificial intelligence. More traditional are the rooms for drawing, sewing, cooking, painting, languages, ballet, drama, chemistry, physics, biology, anatomy, and mathematics. There is even a room equipped with compartments for learning to drive and fly.

Begun at the end of 2022 and completed in September 2023, this school welcomed its first intake of 500 students last year and expects 500 more at the start of the new school year in September. The pedagogy is in keeping with the building, but without any pedagogical flourishes: Classes last 12 hours a day—8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with six hours of “hard” subjects in the morning—grammar, mathematics, history—and six hours of more recreational or complementary subjects in the afternoon—sport, ballet, music, drawing. The canteen provides three meals a day. The only difficulty, says the headmistress, is finding teachers willing to move to Mariupol. But she doesn’t seem to be one to shy away from the task.

In the late afternoon, we set off on the brand-new motorway linking Mariupol to Donetsk, 120 kilometres away, making a short stop in the small town of Volnovakha, whose Palace of Culture was hit by HIMARS rockets last November. The roof has collapsed, and scaffolding clutters what remains of the stage and auditorium. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured in the blast, as the show scheduled for that day was moved at the last minute.

As far as the locals were concerned, there is no doubt that the Ukrainians were trying to kill as many civilians as possible. My guide explained that they always fired HIMARS rockets in groups of three—the first rocket to pierce the roof and structures, the second to kill the occupants, and, 20 to 25 minutes later, a third strike to kill as many firefighters, rescue workers, relatives, policemen, friends, and neighbours who had come to help the victims as possible. I heard this kind of story several times.

Donetsk is a city of one million inhabitants—very spread out, very busy, with heavy traffic. Few buildings or façades have been destroyed. On the other hand, the city is alive with the sound of cannon fire.

I didn’t pay much attention to it when I arrived, because of my fatigue, and the intense emotions provoked by all I was seeing. But when I woke up at 3 a.m., I was suddenly struck by the sound of the cannon. Every two or three minutes, a shot goes off, rattling the windows and lighting up the sky with an orange glow: It’s Russian artillery firing on Ukrainian positions a few kilometres from the town centre. The Ukrainians retaliate with missiles, drones, or HIMARS rockets, which trigger Russian counter-battery fire, at a rate of one or two an hour, I believe.

The next morning, I was taught to distinguish one from the other. The HIMARS rockets are silent until the final explosion, the French SCALP and British Storm Shadow missiles make an airplane-like hum, as do the Russian anti-missile batteries, while the ordinary shells fall with a whistling sound. In any case, I have nothing to worry about, my new friends assure me. They have put me up in the only hotel in the city still in American hands, and the Ukrainians would never dare fire on an American target.

Nevertheless, Ukrainian fire continues to cause injuries and an average of one death a week. All civilians, because there are absolutely no soldiers, military vehicles, or military installations in the town. In four days, I haven’t come across a single uniform.

We start the day with a visit to the “Alley of Angels,” which stands in the middle of a beautiful city park. This is the name given to the funerary monument erected in memory of the children killed by Ukrainian bombing since 2014. A hundred sixty names have already been inscribed on the marble. But the list of casualties now runs to more than 200. Dozens of bunches of flowers, toys, and photos of children pile up under the wrought-iron arch. It’s overwhelming.

On the way back, we pay a visit to our professional colleagues from OPLOT television and radio, the Donetsk state broadcaster, on the edge of the central square. Their building is regularly targeted by HIMARS. The last studios to be hit have not yet been repaired, but the refurbishing is swift, and the five TV and radio channels are broadcasting without interruption. The management and staff are 90 percent female; the few men on staff are assigned to cover the front line, 10 kilometres away. A small kindergarten—a large crèche would attract the attention of the Ukrainian HIMARS—takes care of the employees’ children. It’s the same all over the city, as public crèches have had to close to avoid the strikes.

Initially, in 2014, it was difficult to recruit journalists because of the risk of attack, but that is no longer the case, says editor-in-chief Nina Anatoleva. The Russian intervention in 2022 greatly increased security. But they have lost viewers. Their channels, which used to broadcast widely in the Russian-speaking part of Ukraine, have been cut off—the Ukrainians have blocked the satellite signals—and can now be seen only on the internet or the local network.

As soon as you leave Donetsk, you feel the proximity of the front.

In the afternoon, we travel to the village of Yasynuvata, close to Avdiivka and therefore very close to the front line. The village, which is very exposed to Ukrainian shelling, is home to a school that has been converted into a reception centre for refugees from recently liberated villages. The road is torn up by shellfire and littered with the debris of collapsed bridges. On our left, two Ka–50 Alligator attack helicopters and an MI–8 helicopter are flying low over the ground as they return from the front. To our right, trenches and three rows of dragoons’ teeth, the equivalent of the Swiss Army’s Toblerone armoured barriers, so named after the Swiss chocolate because of their shape, form one of the lines of Russian defence. Military vehicles regularly drive along it.

Our vehicle is entirely anonymous. No convoy, no press badges, no bullet-proof waistcoats or helmets to attract the attention of Ukrainian surveillance drones. The GPS on our mobile phones has long since been deactivated. It’s all about being as ordinary as possible. The road is getting worse and worse, and traffic is now almost non-existent. The driver, the guide, and Umar are perfectly impassive.

The headmistress of the school, a former maths teacher who is now the head of the reception centre, welcomes us. The liberation of Avdiivka and its neighbouring villages at the end of February brought the surviving inhabitants out of the cellars. They are housed here, in the classrooms, while waiting to return to their homes or find new ones. Some of the 160 people housed here have already been able to return to Avdiivka.

Today, it is the turn of Nina Timofeevna, 85 years old and full of verve, to return to her home. She lived in her cellar for two years, making fires on the street. “The Ukrainian soldiers didn’t help us at all,” she assures us, while the Russian army repaired her roof and the windows of her house so that she can return, flanked by two soldiers from the military police who carry her gear. “It’s not a war,” she says. “It’s a massacre of civilians. They want to destroy us.”

In the corridors, volunteers from the Orthodox Church are unpacking boxes of clothes, bottles of water, and food. In the other rooms, a couple with a beautiful blue-eyed cat, old people. A family with a four-year-old boy: They had their flat blown away by a rocket while trying to find food outside. The father was a factory worker and the mother an accountant at the Avdiivka coking plant. They miraculously escaped death and still can’t believe they survived.

On the way back to Donetsk, the discussion turns to life during the war, and Yevgeny, our volunteer guide from Vladivostok, tells me that, in Mariupol in 2014, the neo–Nazi Azov Battalion opened a secret prison in a building at the airport, called the Bibliotheka, the Library, because the victims there were referred to as “books,” like the Nazis who called their victims “Stücke,” “pieces.”

According to eyewitness accounts, dozens of people were tortured and killed there during the eight years when the battalion’s nationalists, tattooed with Nazi symbols, ruled Mariupol while the local police looked the other way. Investigations are under way to identify the victims, and visits to the premises have been suspended. The Russian press reported on these incidents, but Western media remained silent for fear of undermining the narrative of the good Ukrainians and the bad Russians.

My second conclusion now. At the beginning of April, Donbas celebrated the 10th anniversary of its uprising against the Kiev regime, which, in the spring of 2014, had declared a terrorizing war against it. Thousands of people—civilians, children, and fighters—have been killed. Donetsk has taken on the nickname of “City of Heroes.” After so many sacrifices, the three million inhabitants of the oblast, the province, will fight to the bitter end to defend their republic, whatever the cost and whatever people in the West may think of them.