#sight #Ukrainian #front
On the front line south of the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, a 40-year-old medic nicknamed “Doc” is preparing in a trench for celebrations marking the six-month anniversary of the Russian invasion.
“You have to be prepared for this to take a long time,” Doc said, his owlish eyebrows peeking out from under his camouflage helmet.
“There are a lot of tears, a lot of blood. You cry in your heart,” says the paramedic, who is a dental technician in civilian life.
“The history of generations will be destroyed.”
In an underground bunker complex, surrounded by rusted anti-tank airlocks and filled with stray cats and dogs, his comrades spoon up scalding bowls of hearty soup.
At the head of the table sits a man with an arm tattoo that reads “Never Give Up” in italics.
“Six months of war is not only a great sadness for the country, but also a small sadness for each individual,” said 41-year-old soldier Mykola, sitting on his left.
The battalion’s deputy commander Artem, 30, said: “We have informed our soldiers that the conflict could drag on for years.”
Russia launched its attack on February 24, attempting to capture the Ukrainian capital in a lightning offensive.
Kiev’s forces put up fierce resistance and forced a Russian retreat before the war shifted to the eastern Donbass region.
In recent weeks, the focus has shifted to southern Ukraine, where the Ukrainian armed forces say they are preparing a counteroffensive.
When asked about hopes for the future during a visit to Odessa, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres closed his eyes, slowed his words and spoke of a “very difficult situation in which the prospects for peace are not obvious”.
– A third front –
In Mykolayiv the war now seems nothing new.
Wartime billboards are soaked in winter, torn by spring storms and faded in the scorching summer heat.
Checkpoint sandbags have torn their seams and sprouted weeds.
In the first weeks of the war, a Russian missile punched a hole in the regional government headquarters, killing 37 people.
The gaping hole is now one of many scars on the Port Center skyline as the city comes under incessant shelling.
Petro Mohyla Black Sea State University was attacked twice last week.
The front entrance was blown apart, ceiling panels ripped off and windows shattered into tessellated pieces of glass.
The collapse of the facade revealed classrooms inside.
“They are attacking schools, hospitals, the port and the city’s infrastructure,” Rector Leonid Klymenko said in a burned-out study hall.
“It is clear that they want to completely destroy the education system of Ukraine, destroy the Ukrainian spirit, want to destroy everything Ukrainian.”
– Way for peace? –
As the war approaches its seventh month, there is little sign of progress.
The UN and Turkey have brokered a landmark grain deal that will allow Russia to ease a blockade on Ukraine’s southern Black Sea ports, dump grain shipments and ease a global food price crisis.
On Friday, Guterres toured a port in the city of Odessa to welcome the new pact.
But the visit was overshadowed by swirling concerns surrounding the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, elsewhere in southern Ukraine, which is being occupied by Russian troops and being fired upon by rockets.
“It will not be easy to find a path to peace in the short term,” Guterres told AFP.
“But we have to persevere, because peace is the most important thing in the world.”
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