In a helmet and bulletproof vest, Stanislav Choukh scans the peaceful sea to the sound of mortar fire. In eastern Ukraine, clashes continue despite the announcement by Moscow of a withdrawal of its troops from the Ukrainian border.
“Unfortunately, the escalation remains palpable”, told AFP this 35-year-old soldier, posted in the village of Chirokiné, on the shores of the Sea of Azov near Mariupol, the last large city in the east controlled by Kiev .
Once a popular seaside resort in this industrial region, Chirokiné was abandoned by its inhabitants after the start of the war with pro-Russian separatists in 2014.
Today in ruins, the village is dug with trenches and the alleys are surveyed only by soldiers trying not to step on mines.
Since the start of the year, clashes have increased between Ukrainian forces and separatists, after a widely respected truce during the second half of 2020.
Thirty Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the start of the year against a total of 50 in 2020. The separatists have reported at least twenty of their fighters killed since January.
At the same time, tensions have increased with Moscow, considered the godfather of the separatists and which in recent weeks has deployed up to 100,000 troops near the eastern Ukrainian border and in the annexed Crimean peninsula, raising fears of a military operation by span.
If Russia ended up announcing on Friday the start of a withdrawal of its troops from border areas, the tension on the front line has hardly diminished, according to Ukrainian soldiers.
“The enemy’s activity has been stable lately,” he uses all types of weaponry: “from simple firearms to 120-millimeter mortars,” said Mr. Choukh. “They are probing our positions, we can say that they are carrying out reconnaissance by fire.”
” This is forever ”
Gotcha, a military man of Georgian origin, confirms. “You see with your own eyes that it is shooting here,” he told AFP journalists as Kalashnikov and mortar fire were clearly audible.
“This morning, it was 120 millimeter caliber mortars and grenade launchers,” he explains, adding that another soldier of Georgian origin had been killed “a week ago” by “gunfire”. grenade launcher into a trench ”.
Across the front line, the number of violations of the truce has not really dropped, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observation mission deployed in the area of conflict.
In its last report on Monday, the OSCE reported 390 violations recorded from Friday evening to Sunday evening in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions against 332 during the previous weekend.
“In the east, no change,” a Ukrainian military official also told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The announcement of a withdrawal of Russian troops does not seem very convincing to the West for the moment.
“We have seen a certain departure of some Russian forces away from Ukraine,” but “it is too early to take it at face value,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Monday.
On the ground, Ukrainian soldiers are just as suspicious.
“According to our data, part of the Russian troops left the territory near our border, but all their equipment which can be very easily moved for an escalation has remained,” said Mr. Choukh.
“It’s just a maneuver,” Gotcha added. “They show the whole world that they are leaving, but I won’t believe it until I see it with my own eyes,” he says.
For Oleksandre Lytvynenko, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Strategic Studies, this renewed tension with Moscow is very likely to be repeated regularly.
“It’s forever,” said the expert according to which the movement of troops around the Ukraine gives the Kremlin “a good instrument of bargaining with the Americans” while allowing pressure to be maintained on Kiev.