‘All this suffering because of a madman’: Putin’s forces intensify attacks in bid to seize the Donbas

“No mother should have to watch her daughter die. No mother should have to piece together her daughter’s body. They killed her, they broke my heart, they broke the hearts of our family.”

Vera Ivanova is inconsolable in her grief.

Her daughter, Nataliya, died in a bombing in Sievierodonetsk — one of two cities, along with Lysychansk, that the Russians are trying to capture to complete their seizure of the Luhansk region in the fierce battles of eastern Ukraine.

Having failed to capture Kyiv or Kharkiv, the focus of Vladimir Putin’s forces is now on the east of the country. And they are making gains there, with Ukrainian forces outgunned and being pushed back, despite putting up fierce resistance.

Nataliya Ivanova was with her family at the sprawling Azot chemical plant which has become a place of refuge for hundreds of people in a city facing months of missile and air strikes and artillery rounds. The death and destruction is massive in scale. More than 1,600 people have died in the fighting, and just 2,000 remain in the shattered city out of a pre-war population of 110.000.

The ferocity of the assault on Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk has increased since Russian forces suffered heavy losses during a failed attempt to cross the Seversky Donets River earlier this month, there seems to be spite in the targeting of civilian areas now.

Around 80 per cent of the buildings in the city have been hit, with hardly any left standing in some neighbourhoods. Residents have largely retreated underground, rarely venturing out apart from occasional communal meals.

Nataliya was killed along with three others gathered outside the plant to cook and eat in the afternoon. The attack was timed, say survivors, to inflict maximum casualties.

“They took away a wife and a mother,” says a weeping Vera, who is 73. “Look at the boys, look at her husband. We are all suffering.

“We can’t even stay for her funeral, we have to leave, the church will bury her. All this suffering because of a madman and all those people who follow him.”

Natalya’s 14-year-old twin sons, Maxim and Oleksandr, sit on the ground with their arms around each other. Her husband, Vladislav Golovin, stands next to them, staring ahead.

After a moment, he shakes his head. “She was a good woman, my wife. I miss her. I don’t know why they bombed us. They say someone directed them, but why would anyone do that?” His voice fades away.

Police have arrested a man accused of being in contact with the enemy before the attack. He allegedly informed the Russians of a gathering of people out in the open: a little while later the bombing started.

“We have enough evidence to show that his man has been in communication with the Russians,” says the officer in charge of the investigation, Pavel Landik. “There are others involved, we are going to catch them.

“They bombed this place when there was a lot of people outside. It was not a military target, the idea must have been to create panic among people, create terror.”

Nicola Ivanov was also killed in the air strike. Her husband, Mykola, suffered severe leg injuries. He was evacuated. Their son, Sergei, is trying to find where he was taken.

“My father had to be moved very quickly, and he has no documents with him,” says Sergei. “I need to find him. He was unwell before his injuries and I’m very worried about him, he might be unconscious in a hospital somewhere.”

Sergei is a giant of a man. A former professional boxer, he had been a sparring partner of Vitali Klitschko, the former world heavyweight champion now in the international limelight as the wartime mayor of Kyiv.

Sergei says Klitschko wanted to spar with him before his fight with Lennox Lewis for the undisputed world title – the ‘Battle of the Titans’ in Los Angeles in 2003. Lewis won on a technical knockout when the bout was stopped in the sixth round due to a severe cut above Klischko’s left eye.

Xural.com