Front-line river is dictating the flow of Russia’s offensive

A source of life and refuge since the 17th century, the Siverskyi Donets can now give Ukraine a tactical edge

One night every July, the men and women of Mayaki set fire to enormous tires and roll them down the steep hillside towards the bank of the Siverskyi Donets river.

Come midnight, they fling themselves, usually a little drunk, into the river’s cool, slow-moving waters.

“That’s what we did last year. Not me though. I grew up in the Donets, but I never learnt to swim,” said Nikolai Tverdokhebov, a 70-year-old man who lived all his life by the river. “It won’t be happening this year though.”

Every village on the Siverskyi

Donets has its own way of celebrating Ivana Kupala, an ancient festival that Christian missionaries tried to link to John the Baptist, but which is always really about love.

Mayaki is now a front-line village. The Donets has become the thread linking the most violent battles of the fight for eastern Ukraine, and the Ukrainian’s last line of defence against the grinding Russian assault.

Upstream in Kharkiv region, a Ukrainian counter offensive last month reached the right bank at the river town of Stary Saltiv, establishing a secure defensive line to the city’s east. Downstream from here, a battle is ongoing for Severodonetsk, the last Ukrainian toe-hold on the left bank in Luhansk region.

As the Ukrainians in Severodonetsk are forced back, the Russians have tried to use the river to isolate them.

Just across the river from Mayaki, beyond the low and forested floodplain, the Russians last week pounded their way into the town of Lyman. They are now poised to force a crossing to Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, the most important towns still under Ukrainian control in the Donetsk region, which makes up the other half of the Donbas with Luhansk.

On the day The Daily Telegraph visited Mayaki, the bombardments on the other side of the river were relentless, loud and terrifyingly close.

Yet many people, including children, went about their day without paying too much attention.

They are already accustomed to the bangs, and have their own way of judging the danger.

The Siverskyi Donets rises in Russia, just north of Belgorod, and crosses the border to the east of Kharkiv.

It passes through a steep, forested valley before looping up through the city centre of Izyum, then meanders down to Donetsk region.

For the Donbas, the river is literally the source of life. The earliest neolithic settlements in the region have been found along its banks.

Mayaki, which means lighthouses, was settled by Cossacks in the 17th century. Since then, dams have slowed the river’s flow, at some points forming wide lakes. One such reservoir provides a large proportion of the drinking water for Kharkiv.

Nonetheless, the river and its tributaries retain a remarkable biodiversity. Along its banks, the vegetation is thick, and the calls of frogs and insects as loud as in any jungle.

Humans, too, have found refuge in its plashy fens.

“Better off here than on the eighth floor,” said Valya, a 60-year-old from Kramatorsk who arrived in the village after a missile strike blew in the windows of her flat at the end of April.

“There was glass everywhere, so my ex-husband said ‘Come and stay with me’.

“So I got here, and I thought ‘Where have I come to,’” she said, referring to the constant nearby shelling.

The divorcees are now living together in his wooden house overlooking the river in a more or less amiable, if unexpected, arrangement.

Like many towns and villages on the front line, electricity, gas and running water cut out long ago. But it is summer, so it is possible to cook outside on an open fire. The village shop is still open, and the drinking water the villagers draw by hand from the wells is better than anything out of a tap. And while shells land all around, Mayaki, in an obscure valley, has been relatively untouched.

“It lands everywhere around here, but not in the village for some reason,” said one soldier, pausing to listen to a volley of incoming blasts. “That was five kilometres away. Maybe a bit closer,” he said.

Down by the river, however, something did open up – and shortly afterwards a handful of answering shells came in. On a lane by the river bank, a group of neighbours enjoying the sun stopped talking and made themselves scarce.

If they are lucky, the war will bypass the residents and refugees in Mayaki.

It has no bridge, and to reach the river the Russians in Lyman would have to force their way through the dense, national park opposite.

But Russian commanders could yet decide to obliterate the place, as they have other towns in their path.

The river is the only thing keeping the Russians from Slavyansk, one of the most important strategic towns in the Donetsk region, where Moscow’s offensive is likely to turn if it completes the capture of Luhansk.

If they can cross the bridge at Raygorodok, a few miles downstream, they will already be on the city’s outskirts. Shells hit Slavyansk yesterday. The topography favours the defenders. The right, Ukrainian-held bank tends to be steeper here, while the left, eastern bank is often lowerlying and marshy.

River crossings are also difficult and dangerous operations.

A Russian attempt to envelop Lysychansk by crossing at Bilohorivka on May 8 ended in catastrophe when it was spotted by Ukrainian artillery. Hundreds of Russian troops are believed to have been killed.

Ukrainian sources claimed to have thwarted at least two other attempts on the same stretch of river, yet the waterway is not impenetrable.

The Russians are already over the river on the other side of the Donbas salient, pushing westwards to threaten Lysychansk from the rear.

Around Izyum, to the north, they are far across the river. If they can establish a bridge head here, the Ukrainian defence of Donbas will be in big trouble.

“Why did they have to come here from thousands of miles away to do this?” grumbled Mr Tverdokhebov shortly after the incoming salvo.

“I love that river. I just wish I could take my rod and cycle down there to fish. It’s too shallow for barges, there’s no factories. It’s just a peaceful place for fishing.”

‘Better off here than on the eighth floor ... my ex-husband said come and stay with me, and I thought “where have I come to’”

‘Why did they have to come here from thousands of miles away to do this? I love that river, it’s just a peaceful place’