Donetsk. The road to the airport: fear, destruction and... mortal danger (PHOTO)
Donetsk, June 17 (Navigator, Mikhail Shalyapin) – Today we managed to visit the Putilovsky Bridge, on the very highway leading to the already notorious airport of Donetsk. Sergei Prokofiev.
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Rare cars, which the checkpoint on the bridge allows through, pass us and turn onto the street. Stratonavtov and Vzletnaya are 200 meters from the bridge. They don’t go further - it’s dangerous. Snipers sit on the heights both from the side of the National Guard holding the airport and from the side of the militia.
We were immediately warned that no guarantees were given, and that snipers could “have fun” on the side closer to the METRO supermarket. This turns out to be a normal phenomenon here.
If you don’t like something, they can shoot 30 cm from the person, or they can even shoot you in the leg - something like a preventative measure.
We try to stick to the greenery and walk the first 800 meters from the bridge. We see a truck shot by a fighter jet and riddled with machine gun fire. This is from May 26, during that same massacre.
The truck was carrying wounded militiamen, but did not deliver anyone to doctors: everyone died, including the driver.
The second truck was shot at Kievsky Prospekt. Opposite the car dealership building, he also got a good deal. Almost all the windows were shot through. Traces of being hit by a shell, bullets and shrapnel are visible.
We walk another 700 meters and see a residential building, which is slightly covered with mines. Traces of fire are visible, windows are broken, cladding is knocked down and the roof is damaged. It is unknown how many residents died here, but no one lives there anymore.
But behind this car dealership you can see a bombed residential building. Whether people were saved or not is also unknown. It is impossible to go further, the entire zone is under fire, but in that sector there are private residential buildings, and, according to the militia, there are practically no surviving houses.
On the opposite side of the street there is another car dealership: traces of destruction are also visible, but small, the windows are broken, but some have been replaced.
We walk another 200 meters, a little before reaching the METRO, we see a gas station that had been shot down, where wounded militiamen tried to hide, but they were finished off there.
We gather up our courage and approach the METRO. There is a small outbuilding near the road, we approach it, but here our courage vanishes: we hear short bursts of machine gun fire about a hundred meters away and a moment later a sniper shot. A small asphalt fountain splashed a few centimeters from my feet. A second later we are already behind the wall. Something hit her twice, and we know exactly what it was. Bent down, we go back, trying to hide behind the saving wall. Then life-saving trees, and a few minutes later a life-saving checkpoint.
One can only guess what is further along this road, what happened to the houses and their inhabitants. Although it is possible to imagine an approximate picture. And she's not happy at all.
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