Devastated by Russian attack, Ukrainians vow to defend country

By Jeyhun Aliyev

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AA) – With the Ukrainian military seeking recruits to help fight off Russian military intervention, people in the city of Kramatorsk in Donbas, eastern Ukraine lined up at the enlistment office to voluntarily join the nation’s Territorial Defense Forces.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency at the military registration office on Friday, Sergei Katsapov, 61, said he wants to join the nation’s defense.

“There’s fighting all over the country, and I think a normal human being can't tolerate it,” he said, adding that he was watching the devastation on television and saw how an airbase was attacked.

“I spent the last war (in 2014) hiding my wife and daughter in the basement. But now, my grandchildren are grown up, and I decided that I won't be just sitting home during this war,” Katsapov said, stressing that the Russian forces have to leave.

“If they don’t leave, they will be destroyed everywhere: on the ground, in the water, in the air, everywhere,” he said defiantly.

“This is my country although I was born in Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod (in western Russia),” he explained.

“But I lived here my whole life. This country brought me up, gave me an education, and a job. For this country, I served in the Soviet army, and now I have my family and grandchildren here. So I will be defending my country with my soul.”

The eastern Ukrainian region he lives in, Donbas, borders Russia, and has a large population of ethnic Russians. Since 2014, it has been rocked by conflict with Russian-backed separatists, a conflict which has taken 14,000 lives. This week, on the eve of launching a military intervention, Russia recognized two separatist-held enclaves in Donbas as “independent.”

The military office accepted his application, Katsapov said proudly.

- 'I want to defend my family'

Sergei Parchamchuk, 46, another Kramatorsk resident who came to apply for military service, said: “It seems that I'm not needed here due to the bureaucracy.”

“I haven't been in the army before. I was studying at university and I had a military service deferment. But now they say that they have no records on me and it takes a long time to find it out ... they didn’t accept my application,” he said, dejected.

“My rights are being breached. I don't know how to defend my family,” he added.

On Friday, Yuri Galushkin, Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Course commander, said procedures for joining the nation’s military had been streamlined in light of circumstances, but perhaps not everywhere yet.

Stressing that he is packed, Parchamchuk said he is "ready to join the military and go to any hotspot to defend my country."

“This is a test for our nation. We have no place to retreat. In 2014, Donetsk was surrendered, but now we won’t surrender any city,” he said, referring to one of the two separatist-held enclaves in Donbas.

Following a months-long buildup of troops around neighboring Ukraine's borders, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military intervention into Ukraine on Thursday. It has been met by international condemnation and announcements of new sanctions by Western countries.

- Territorial Defense Forces

In preparation for the worst-case scenario with Russia, Ukraine’s reservist officers have been holding weekly military training for civilians.

Civilians in several cities of Ukraine were trained in the use of weapons, first aid, and emergency procedures.

Under Ukraine's territorial defense system, special measures are carried out across the country in peacetime to prepare the nation for any possible military threat.

According to the National Resistance Act that took effect on Jan. 1, the Territorial Defense Forces had a regular force of 10,000 career personnel in peacetime, with an additional 120,000 civilian reservists to be recruited and trained.

With army mobilization, the volunteer army should consist of more than 130,000 people, including reservists.