When they enlisted, many of the fighters from territorial defense units in western Ukraine were assigned to safe tasks away from the fighting. Then they were called to the front, in the east of the country. Their names are Yuri or Andriy, and many are now dying away from home, reports the “New York Times”.
From Rudne, Ukraine – When Yuri Broukhal, an electrician by trade, had joined the Ukrainian territorial defense forces at the start of the war, he had not been given too dangerous a mission. He was tasked with making deliveries and manning a roadblock in the relative safety of his sleepy village. Weeks later, his unit was redeployed from the west to the front line in the east of the country, the site of the heaviest fighting against Russian troops. He was killed on June 10.
Andriy Verteev, an employee in the village grocery store, had spent the first months of the war guarding a small road bridge after work, and he was reunited with his wife and daughter every evening. Then he, too, volunteered to go east. He died in the battle for control of Luhansk Oblast just weeks before Broukhal.
Their deaths show how no region of Ukraine is spared by war, even those furthest from the front. It also highlights the risks faced by volunteers who, with limited training, are increasingly sent to take part in battles that are a test even for the most experienced soldiers. Their remains return to fill the cemeteries of mostly peaceful towns and villages in the east of the country. [Roudné est une commune de la banlieue de Lviv].
“He went there to protect us here”, explains Vira Datsko, elder sister of Broukhal, aged 52, who salutes her brother’s patriotism.
“But for us it’s a tragedy – it’s so hard to see the best of us going to die in this war.”
From the start of the war in February, Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60 were banned from leaving the country, even if they were not immediately called up, and many volunteered to go and fight . Originally, Territorial Defense members, reserve units of the Ukrainian army, were assigned to unglamorous but harmless tasks in otherwise quiet areas, such as western Ukraine. , which was not invaded by the Russians. But the heavy losses suffered in the Donbass, where Russia is progressing slowly crushing everything under bombs and shells, forced the Ukrainian general staff to call in reinforcements from the west.
Many fighters like Broukhal, lacking any prior military experience, are simply not ready for this escalation in the brutality of the clashes. Their training is limited – sometimes two weeks or less. Home Defense volunteers are not required to redeploy with their unit, but many do, driven by patriotism or a sense of duty, and may
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The New York Times (New York)With 1,600 journalists, 35 overseas bureaus, 130 Pulitzer Prize winners and some 5 million total subscribers, The New York Times is by far the leading daily newspaper in the country, in which one can read “all the news that’s fit to print” (“all information worthy of publication”).
It is the reference newspaper of the United States, insofar as the televisions consider that a subject deserves national coverage only if The New York Times Trafficking. Its Sunday edition (1.1 million copies) is distributed across the country – including The New York Times Book Review, an authoritative book supplement, and the unequaled New York Times Magazine. The Ochs-Sulzberger family, which in 1896 took control of this newspaper created in 1851, is still at the head of the centre-left daily.
As for the web edition, which boasts more than 3.7 million subscribers in October 2019, it offers everything you would expect from an online service, plus dozens of specific sections. The archives bring together articles published since 1851, which can be consulted online from 1981.
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