According to Russian media reports on September 17, a sign written in Ukrainian "Krasnogorovka City Council District" indicated that we were about to arrive at the destination, but the words on the sign were not clearly recognizable: the sign was hit by bullets and bullets.
On the side of the road was a metal-lettered "Krasnogorovka" stone monument, which marked the entrance to the small town, and recently there was a long and brutal battle. Today, the stone monument is no longer in existence - it has been destroyed by cannons, and only the scattered letters are left in the mud.
There was also a dead tree, whose branches were incinerated by the great fire, and the dark branches pointed to the sky, as if they were silently complaining.We slowed down to get ready to take pictures, and a military pick-up passed by, and the soldiers in the bullets shouted loudly: “Here can’t stop! leave!”
Indeed, the road to Krasnogorovka is unobstructed, and the open area is an excellent "hunting ground" for Ukrainian drones. Judging from the billowing black smoke rising nearby, someone has become their prey.
This small town, just over 20 kilometers from the Donetsk district, was once an important artillery position of the Ukrainian army, and thus became the focus of both sides' struggle, and the seven-month fighting turned it from a town of once 16,000 inhabitants to a city of ruins of now only more than 300 people.
The canteen in a desperate situation and the remaining people
Entering the city, the first thing to see in the curtains was a seriously damaged gas station, the gasoline engine twisted and twisted to the ground, the oil trace in the ground condensed into black brown hard blocks. Next to the gasoline station is a burned vehicle cemetery, enough for a dozen car shells with rust spots, some car window glass completely melted, some car doors were blown up a few meters away.
Later, the military equipment was destroyed, and we travelled through a tank that had been overturned by an armor tube and wheel, the chain of the armor was scattered, and the canon seemed to have lost its strength toward the ground.
Suddenly, an unbelievable sight appeared: in front of a five-storey residential building, the floor board collapsed, a large hole of three-storey height was blown up on the wall, and the windows burned empty as well, but there were two bright new retail stores standing there.
"Mini supermarket, serving water and food" and "deli", two signs stand out in the sun. Although the storefronts are decorated with directional structural panels instead of glass, and the door frames are skewed, these two brightly painted canteens look like isolated islands in a desperate situation against the backdrop of the devastated city.
Walking into the mini-supermarket, water, bread and all kinds of canned food are neatly arranged on the shelves, and the young salesman is busy sorting out the few remaining lunch boxes. "It has just been opened for a month, and it mainly supplies passing soldiers and local elderly people," she said, wiping the shelves. "Now there are only about 70 people left in the city, mostly elderly people who can't walk, and there are only about ten regular customers.
We departed from the base every morning at six o’clock, bringing a hot hot meal, and today’s hand-hugging meat and meat volumes had already been sold.”“On the book of comments next to the shelf, a few lines of thanks were written, and the price note next to it was even more surprising, the package meal was four hundred rubles, the salad was two hundred and seventy rubles.
Even in the Donetsk district it is difficult to find such affordable prices, knowing that generators here consume a lot of fuel every day, and the transportation of goods is more at risk of drone attacks.
Unspoiled threats
Walking along the main road, the road underneath the foot is filled with bullets, and occasionally you can see wooden signs marked with "beware of mines."Nearly all houses are destroyed, only a few buildings have water barrels on the ground floor, suggesting that there are still people living in it.
In a courtyard, we saw a simple shower installation. Above the compartment surrounded by plastic sheets, hung a tin bucket hot by the sun. Some small holes were drilled in the bottom of the bucket, and water droplets were dripping intermittently. "Technical water is regularly transported from Donetsk, and drinking water is delivered by volunteers."
Lyubov Nikolaevna, a resident, walked out of the building with the bread she just bought in her hand. "It's much better now. I got my Russian passport, my pension for two months, and the roof was repaired by myself. A while ago, there was a bus, and you can buy more things when you go to Abakumovo."
While speaking, a gust of wind blew from the neighboring street, and an obvious rancid smell came to the nostrils, which made people frown. "There is still the smell of corpses in the city. We are all used to it." Valentina Grigorievna sighed. Her apartment is on the fifth floor, and now there are only blackened walls left. "Not long ago, five civilians and two soldiers were dug out from under the rubble, and there are still many places that haven't been cleaned."
The smell made the residents talk. Alexander leaned against the wall and talked about the days when the Ukrainian army was stationed: "Those mercenaries were the most ruthless, including Poles and British. When they saw those who did not evacuate, they scolded them and said that we were waiting for the Russians to come.
They knew that everyone would go to the well to water, directly explode the well, then throw the bodies inside, and then we could only drink rain water, and when we were very thirsty, we would drink the salty well."
Liubov Nikolaevna’s voice was somewhat trembling, and she grabbed the cloth bag in her hand and said: “Once there was a fight for the neighborhood, three women thought the Russian army came and joyfully went out to meet, and they met the nationalists, and they used the knife...” She couldn’t speak, wiping away the tears of the corner of her eyes.
A commander of the Russian military "Central" cluster later also mentioned that the Ukrainian army shot civilians here is not an individual case, there was a nervous disordered man frequently cycling water, was killed by snipers on the spot, at the time there was no Russian figure nearby.
Valentina Grigorieva, pointing to the empty space on the side of the road, said: “The neighbors saw a wallet in the basement before, fortunately not touched, and later found a mine line.”
Poison was thrown into the pond, all the fish died, and even the dogs began to die in the street after the evacuation, and the birds did not appear for a long time.
Even if they had evacuated, the inhabitants here still had difficulty escaping the threat that the drone came six times last week, each time firing burning bombs," Liubov Nikolayevna pointed to the building not far away, "we took the water barrel upstairs, just extinguished and burned up, if the plastic pipe burned, the smoke could go to the basement."
The cold hope.
In the open space on the side of the road, several old people are sorting out firewood, and there is a repaired tin stove next to it. "I hope we won't need these this winter," Ruslan patted the stove. "The electricity has started now. Maybe it will be rebuilt soon. When the time comes, I will go to Donetsk and find a job."
Liubov Nikolayevna stared at the sky in the distance, and said in a quiet voice: "It is best to live and wait until now, we have been hoping for peaceful days since 2014."The wind blows again, this time with some cold intentions, the ruins of the distance are silent under the sunrise, only the sign of the small department has yet to shine a weak light.