Sergei drives a car like a maniac. Before the war, the tight-lipped Ukrainian was a lawyer. He was now driving a Mitsubishi pickup truck racing on a dirt road at 100 km / h.

There are three of us in the back seat, and in front is a destination that is constantly being shelled by Russian artillery.

The car turned to go around a Russian shell stuck in the ground. “A cluster bomb,” Serhiy explained. It would seem that this is a warning that you can not move on. But no.

“Do you want to see the village or our shelter first?” he asked when the green pickup stopped. “Shelter,” said cameraman Darren Conway and I.

On the Eastern Front, Vladimir Putin mixed day and night, driving people into hiding. The village we came to is located on the outskirts of Izyum, a small town in the Kharkiv region, which is called the key to Donbass. The artillery shelling ends, and we descend into the cool darkness of the shelter.

Unable to capture the entire country, Russia focused on tearing Ukraine to pieces. The people in the shelter – and there are many of them – are doing everything to prevent this from happening.

Bare lamps illuminate the dark space of the temporary home of volunteer soldiers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

What we saw could well have been a scene from the wars of the past years, if not for the widescreen TV that was “streaming” from powerful spy cameras aimed at Russian positions. “A gift from our friends,” said one commander, noting that he had received it from Western governments.

The fighters browse Instagram and Facebook, correspond with family and friends. If the advanced troops achieve the set goal, Elon Musk will become a hero of Ukraine. Its Starlink satellite network provides free internet access in the combat zone.

Meanwhile, the shooting started again from above.

“The Russians have finished smoking,” said another fighter, getting up from his bed.

It’s time to go. We had to accompany the infantry patrol moving in the open to the first line of defense. A dove made a sound, and everything calmed down. There was an automatic line somewhere.

“Don’t pile up,” we heard as we walked through the ruined village, huddled together.

Meanwhile, the shelling was not a joke. A projectile whistled overhead and landed nearby. A Russian tank was operating nearby, then mortar fire began. The men leading us moved steadily through the backyards and gardens, avoiding the roads and trying to avoid the corrective drones.

I bent down as another projectile whistled overhead and exploded 300 meters away. “If you hear them, it’s not to your liking,” said Yuri, who accompanied us. “You are killed by those you do not hear.” This is the third time in this war that someone is releasing this gloomy joke.

The men moved on, and we finally reached our destination. It was much further than we thought. Inside, the fighters had lunch, paying no attention to the constant explosions.

“God save the queen,” Yuri said, pointing to the British anti-tank weapons. “Thank you, Mr. Johnson, but we need more,” he added, laughing. They need armored vehicles, I thought, I hadn’t seen them at the front all day.

We waited for the last shelling and set off again. The ground was littered with enemy ammunition and fresh funnels. The air smelled of gunpowder and smoke.

We passed barns, cows and sheep looked wary from there. When the villagers fled, they did not have time to save their cattle.

But then suddenly a woman came out of the house. And she began to cry. Natalia told us that she could not leave her village because her husband was buried here. It will be a betrayal, she explained.

The shelling did not subside, the patrol did not move, and even Natalia leaned over. “Guys, do you want borscht?” she asked. Instead, we hid in her cellar, where canned jars stood on wooden shelves.

Finally we heard the sounds of Ukrainian artillery. Ukrainian shells flew over Natalie’s house in search of Russian targets. We realized it was time to leave.

At the operational headquarters, people gathered around the surveillance screen. While we were on guard, twenty Russian infantrymen with mortars tried to attack the village. Ukrainian guns did not get them, so today, as before, the situation has not changed. But the lines of defense did not break, and the people around us once again fulfilled their military duty. The gates to Donbas remained closed.

The offensive on Kyiv was overwhelmed, and Russia focused on the battle for Donbas, the starting point of which was Izyum, where its command headquarters was located. But even there, Russia is having a hard time moving forward.

Before we went on our one-day trip to the front line, I met an American military journalist who also visited there: “You will pray when you go there and when you go out,” she said.

As I scrolled through the head of Our Father, we raced at high speed through the fields and crashed into something solid on the road. Fortunately, for the second time today, the Russian shell that fell into the Ukrainian chernozem did not explode.

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