The pickup truck keeps jumping and Viteli, the driver, tries not to leave the road that goes into the large pine forest in the Yonpil region of Donetsk. The area is full of mines, he says, and you only have to tread on paths that have already been traveled before.
It is a difficult challenge to achieve on a road where logs appear crossed along the way. Some of which still have green, fresh leaves. "These are new, recent attacks," explains Viteli, 60, a mathematics and physics teacher until the invasion.
He tries to control the rudder despite the jumps while watching the map drawn from the commando on his tablet. The holes formed in the rainy season are dry and have turned this dirt road into a difficult barrier of obstacles even for off-road vehicles, including armored ones. Despite the jumps, Vitelli does not slow down. It is dangerous. Russian attacks have never stopped since the beginning of the invasion in this area of the Kreminna front, but have intensified in the last week.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense, Hania Mailer, highlighted the harshness in this sector of the east of the country, in the direction of Liman and Kúpiansk, recaptured from the Russians at the end of October. "It's difficult," he said, stressing that this is the main goal of Moscow's forces, which have significantly increased the number of units in this sector, in particular, airborne assault units. "They are trying to take the initiative away from us. There is a high level of enemy bombing activity and fierce battles await us," Mailer pointed out.
Meanwhile, in the Zaporizhia area, where Ukraine has focused the biggest attacks of the counteroffensive that aims to retake invaded regions, Russia is on the defensive.
With the offensive in Iampil and the north of Donbass, the Ukrainians believe, Russia wants to attract the largest possible number of Ukrainian troops to take pressure off other fronts such as Bakhmut or Vuhledar. "They are trying to advance", says one of the commanders of Brigade 100, to which Viteli belongs.
Iàmpil, a village of peasant houses at the gates of the forest, has been emptied of civilians. In the winter, when there was no electricity or gas, they were seen in the morning going shopping and collecting humanitarian aid. Many old women sat in front of the shop in the center of the village to chat, not caring that the artillery sounded in the distance and that the military chariots passed by in a hurry. Yesterday, this same shop was closed, and the inhabitants, evaporated. Not the constant sounds of artillery and missiles, which fell very close.
Before stopping the vehicle, parking it under some pine trees with leafy crowns and covering it with dry branches to avoid detection by drones, Viteli points out large areas of burned trees: some of which are still emitting smoke. "These are from the last few days", he says, and later shows a trunk that is burning because of an attack a few hours ago. "Last night they threw firebombs again and a fire broke out around us, we had to go out to put it out," explains Roman, vice commander of the unit, who is in charge of the surveillance position Vitelli was leading us.
After walking 800 meters following a path guided by an almost invisible rope tied between the trees, he directs us to one of the bunkers in the middle of the forest. To get there you have to run through the open areas and always look down to avoid stepping on a mine.
The aim is to avoid being seen by the drones, which monitor everything, despite the height of the trees. There are Ukrainian and Russian drones, day and night. They are the eyes of both forces. "Our brigade does not have kamikaze drones, which would be very useful to destroy their tanks", explains Roman, who assures that the enemy's new strategy is to burn everything to get them out of the forest. "Without a doubt they are trying to break our defense, but in this direction they have not been successful", he says.
The situation is more difficult on other flanks of the front. There the Russians are launching what the Ukrainians know as "Storm Z". That is to say, they base their attack on men released from prisons that they send in groups, one after the other, as cannon fodder. A strategy that Moscow's forces have used since the fall to break the Ukrainian lines. "Our colleagues from other units explain that, many times, these men do not even have vests or helmets", explains Basuka, who assures that the men located in this part of the front are from airborne assault units, some of the most professional of the Russian army.
Basuka, along with Makro, is standing guard at one of the last two defensive positions in this part of the forest. The Russian forces are 250 meters away, and sometimes as close as 150. He sees them with his binoculars, although he says it's hard to spot them in the summer when they move during the day. The green of the forest helps them camouflage. At night they can detect them with infrared.
So far they have been able to stop them, despite the fact that the Russians are using everything at their disposal: planes, drones, tanks, artillery, mortars... "We have rendered at least eight tanks useless", says Basuka, without denying that the situation it is difficult. Especially since four days ago, when they started shooting mercilessly. And the other flanks began to be attacked by waves of men sent to die.
This is what Iuri Alexander, one of the doctors in the brigade, who leads a medical unit in the forest, testifies. In recent days, more wounded men have had to be removed, which is torture for this medical team, which has to stabilize the wounded while traversing dirt roads full of potholes.
"It's the hardest experience of my life," says this veteran doctor who worked with Soviet troops in Afghanistan. "There we had airplanes to take out the wounded, here we take them by cart along these roads", he adds, and says that in winter it was worse. And at night, even worse. "It's difficult, but here we're all holding on and we're not letting them pass," he concludes.
