On 2 February 2023, I was able to meet several refugees from Soledar and Bakhmut/ Artyomovsk in Shakhtiorsk, DPR (Donetsk People's Republic), who told me about their evacuation, the destruction of these towns by Ukrainian soldiers, and the fact that they were using civilian infrastructure as a firing point.
As soon as Wagner units took control of Soledar, civilians began to be evacuated from the town for their own safety. As Alexander tells me, the evacuation was dangerous, the civilians had nothing to protect themselves from possible Ukrainian army fire, so it was the Wagner fighters who covered them.
Others, like Evdokia, left Bakhmut in the summer of last year, when it became clear that it was dangerous to stay. She tells how Ukrainian soldiers stole household appliances and shelled her house to make her leave. Evdokia also reports that, as in Mariupol, Ukrainian soldiers promised to raze Bakhmut/Artiomovsk to the ground if they were driven out.
See the report with French subtitles. Two of the refugees still have family in Ukraine, so their faces have been blurred.
That some of the destruction in Bakhmut/Artiomovsk and Soledar is due to deliberate shelling by the Ukrainian army is confirmed by other refugees interviewed by Press TV's Johnny Miller
Two women interviewed even explained that once they were in the area bombed by the Ukrainian army, journalists, including Western ones, asked them to lie and say that it was the Russian army that bombed them!
Part of the destruction is also due to the fact that Ukrainian soldiers set up their firing points in flats, hospitals, sanatoriums, and other infrastructures, thereby attracting response fire from Russian forces on these civilian buildings.
While Evdokia managed to flee the fighting and shelling, members of her family are still stuck in Ukraine because they lack the money to leave the country ($4,000 on average). She herself voted in 2014 for the referendum to create the DPR, and supports the Russian special military operation, which she believes should stop somewhere in Europe to make sure Ukrainians don't come back again.
Among the refugees from Soledar, I interview Elena and Lydia, the two women also voted for the creation of the DPR in the 2014 referendum. They tell of this unusual vote.
"I have never seen an election like this. Even the presidential one. The way people went to the referendum, everyone was colourful, beautiful, well dressed. Everyone went to vote", Elena explains.
Lydia and Elena also tell us how Ukrainian soldiers tried, in vain, to impose their neo-Nazi slogan "Glory to Ukraine" even in the shops, or tried to prevent people from wearing signs with Russian colors.
When I ask them what they think about France supporting and arming Ukraine, Elena and Lydia react harshly and demand that it stops.
"Stop sponsoring Ukraine with weapons and money, it won't make any difference.
We made our choice a long time ago," said Elena.
Evdokia for her part is well aware that this support is decided not by the French people, nor even by Emmanuel Macron, whom she rightly considers a puppet of the same type as Zelensky, but by others to whom "the sun and air we have is not enough for them" and who think they can take their billions to the afterlife.
It is for these pieces of paper with numbers printed on them that lives are being shattered by the millions in the Donbass and in Ukraine, in a proxy war that NATO is waging against Russia.