Rebels Celebrate as Civilians Await Food in Debaltseve
Burnt-out armored vehicles and crater-pocked plazas serve as grim reminders of the fierce battle for Debaltseve that ended with Ukrainian forces abandoning the strategic rail hub to pro-Russian troops this week.
In the center of the largely empty town the tail of an unexploded rocket stuck out of a road and homes were riddled with gaping holes after the fierce mortar fire.
Nearby, most of the windows were blown out of buildings and the top floor of a five-storey apartment block was completely torn off by shelling.
Triumphant rebel fighters congratulated each other in the street and posed for pictures in front of the Ukrainian weapons they captured.
"The first days were the most difficult when we arrived in the town," said insurgent Sasha, showing off a Ukrainian army bulletproof jacket he had looted.
"It was street fighting with automatic rifles. We had some dead and many wounded."
A ceasefire brokered by France and Germany was signed last week in the Belarussian capital Minsk, but quickly collapsed as fighting raged on between Ukrainian government and separatist forces.
As the ferocious violence has subsided, civilians who had spent days hiding in basements without water and electricity began to emerge.
"It was terrible, terrible," repeated Natalia Datskaya, 54.
"Some days they were shelling all the time, non-stop. One time the bombardments started at 3 am and lasted all the way to midnight."
Before the fighting, Debaltseve -- sandwiched between the rebel-held cities of Donetsk and Lugansk -- had a population of around 25,000 but rights groups said it has shrunk to about 5,000.
Speaking as she waited for bread in front of a railway building, Tatiana Reshetova said civilians were deliberately targeted.
"They bombarded the districts of the town one by one to make the inhabitants flee," said Reshetova, 60.
Inside the imposing building about 20 haggard and hungry women fumed at the outside world for doing nothing to stop the fighting.
"You didn't do anything to defend us," said one women bitterly of the West.
Many of those who survived the battle of Debaltseve have little left.
"My house is destroyed and so my son's," says Vasily, 60. "Look at where we live now!"
For the Ukrainian army the defeat in Debaltseve was a bitter blow.
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko claimed the withdrawal after weeks of fierce fighting was pre-planned and orderly.
But Kiev admits at least 13 troops died during the retreat, while 110 were captured by the separatists and 31 are still missing.
Soldiers who fled the town told AFP they had not been ordered to pull out and only realized the army was leaving when the heavy armor started moving out.
Outspoken pro-Kiev volunteer battalion commander and Ukrainian lawmaker Semen Semenchenko, who was not in Debaltseve, has blasted the country's military leadership.
"They are lying to you about the number of dead. They are lying to you about the number of injured. They are lying to you about the real level of command and coordination in the army," he wrote to his followers on Facebook Thursday.
Source: Agence France Presse
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