embedded with the exhausted soldiers who continue to resist Russia

But Kharkiv, we added, together with Gilles Hertzog and Marc Roussel, in our presentation, “is the first line in the same battle for freedom against the current tyranny in front of Russian imperialism“.

France, and therefore Ukraine. Malraux’s phrase (“France is never as great as when it is great for all men”), which has been on my mind since my first reports fifty years ago, fits perfectly now. This is my way of being a patriotIt is my way, in the midst of this cruel summer of heat waves, to honor my country.

***

My presence in Kharkiv It wasn’t announced until the last minute, but by the time the screening was over, the information was already circulating on the networks. There are groups of “Russian avengers” fighting over the honor (and the bonus) that has been promised to whoever manages to make me regret having come.

We have to find a place to spend the night where no one will think of looking for usWe have to ignore the beds without sheets, the doors with wobbly latches, the power cuts that occur several times a day, for several hours at a time, with no possibility of a generator allowing us to turn on the fan.

***

We met at the last gas station before the Russian borderwhere Igor, four elite soldiers of the Jartia and, of course, Zhadan, equipped with a bulletproof vest with the inscription, await us. “Radio Rocks”.

We drive ten kilometres north on dirt tracks that cut across the wasteland, passing villages that Russian glider bombs have reduced to rubble.

We arrived to Lyptsi, epicenter of the fightingwhere we parked the cars in the undergrowth before continuing the path on foot, without losing speed, until reaching a farm where the only entrance is a staircase that sinks into the basement.

Over there, in the bunkerwe found five other men, sitting on cots, with eyes burned from insomniawith whom we engaged in a surreal conversation about the french elections and The failed assassination attempt on Trump. And then… battle cry!

Igor says: “Go ahead!”The men, who had stood up, accompanied by the clatter of gun butts and cartridges, run up the stairs. We run for a kilometer through an open fieldwe crashed into rubble mixed with lumps of mud dried by the heat.

Twice, under the shelter of a wall that was still standing, like a Calvary, we stopped to catch our breath. And then, still running, on the verge of running out of air, We arrived at a 155 cannon camouflaged in a thicket.

I can’t give the exact locationbut imagine a wall of screens facing men who look at once like soldiers (dirty uniforms, faded tattoos) and tech geeks (with old-fashioned school notebooks in which they write down mysterious signs).

Igor says: “Now I will explain to you what just happened. Here is Boris who, when we were talking about Trump and the French elections, said to me through the earpiece: ‘The sky is dirty’. Here is Sergei, who, when he saw no more suspicious drones in the area, corrected ‘the sky is clear’ and gave us the green light.

“There, on that other screen, you can see our drones that, while we were running, they followed the target [una unidad rusa que pretendía atacar]which I shot and which, with the second shot, We managed to completely destroy. And here again, do you see these blue dots?

“That’s our brigade. Hypermodernity. Overexploitation of men who are Ukraine’s treasure and we only hire them if we can protect them. How can we expect Putin not to hate this brilliant, intelligent, cutting-edge city in all technologies? And then look at this…” He points to another screen. Shadows can be seen, which I understand to be Russian military infrastructure on the other side of the border. “For a few weeks now, our allies have finally allowed us to attack enemy territory, right up to the kitchen, and according to the ‘charter’ established by NATO!“.

He starts laughing. “That’s right. Our unit is called Jartia [Khartia] because we scrupulously respect the ‘charter’. Everything is there…”.

*

In the southeast, Kupiansk is another hot spot on the front. by where the Russians are trying to break through.

We discovered the city almost two years ago, when the Ukrainians recovered it and there the atmosphere of a liberated Naples was in the air.

Today the city is emptyThe streets where babushkas were just beginning to return, announcing on the doors of destroyed houses the return of “authentic Ukrainian borscht”, have once again become ghost towns, targets of bombing.

And this afternoon, in a last-ditch effort to ease the siege, Ukrainian forces stationed at the entrance to the western districts They engaged in an artillery duel with Russian forces which were firing from the valley, five kilometers below.

“You see,” says General Artem Bogomolov, commander of the region’s defenses, “Why we have such a dire need for long-range weapons. Listen… Count… You can perfectly distinguish between incoming missiles and outgoing missiles… Well, as we speak, there is an average of eight incoming missiles and one outgoing missile… Eight missiles falling on us for every missile leaving here…”

We are at the highest point, a gigantic promontory that dominates the view of both Kupiansk and the enemy position. And as the sun goes down, we see, in fact, the long trails of the shells that are furrowing the sky above us.

I think that The last time I saw Bogomolov was in Bakhmut, the martyr citycompletely destroyed, where his troops resisted for a whole year. Suddenly, I notice on his round and jovial centurion’s face a strange feverish, almost horrified look, which he did not have then.

And a premonition assails me: What if beautiful Kupiansk was the next Bakhmut? What if the barbarians before us had already decided to reduce it to a pile of ruins and ashes?

***

Denys Prokopenko, Head of the Azov Brigadeis not a man of many words. We met him at a secret camp in the woodswhere we were taken in a state-of-the-art armored vehicle, manufactured in Ukraine, equipped with a drone detector that made us stop three times.

She has the same ruddy cheekbones, the same dazzling smile and the same blue eyes of a bird of prey that I was impressed in Mariupol in 2020when we met.

General Syrsky is also sparing with words. A discreet hero of the Battle of kyiv, then liberator of Kharkov and now commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, having replaced Valery Zaloukhni, who was demoted for having spoken too much in the media, he avoids journalists and spends all his time on the ground, among his soldiers.

We are at one of their bases, further north, lost in the forest, where they have led us with great secrecy along tracks that all seem the same and where our 4x4s have gotten stuck and lost several times.

It is a camp of tents hidden among the trees and covered with straw mattresses decorated with brightly coloured prints. There are a thousand men here. They are obviously busy, but feverish. Eager to enter the fight, but exhausted. They snap to attention when he appears.

Sometimes they shout “Slava Ukraini” as he passes, to which he responds with a sober “Heroyam Slava.” But I see in his eyes a new tiredness that I had not noticed on any of my previous trips..

“Everyone is exhausted“The general says, as if reading my thoughts. He pauses. He stares at me. “We’re facing terrorists who are using steamroller tactics to send waves of human flesh to the slaughterhouse.”

“Can you convey a message?” He hesitates. He takes me aside, with his friend Serge Osipenko acting as translator. We have reached a wide clearing that looks like a devastated orchard, and the heat is once again oppressive.

“We are grateful to President Macron. We appreciate the firmness of your support and your willingness to send us instructors. But we need more to respond to this barbarity and, in responding to it, to enable Europe to confront it. Aircraft. Missile launchers. Your Caesar cannons, in particular, among the best in the world, but of which we have very few.

?France to the rescue of Ukraine? ?Europe is taking over from the United States that Ukrainians know that tomorrow They can get up with Donald Trump’s face? Perhaps that is the message. This man is a strategist who, if given the right resources, will be the Foch of Ukraine and, I repeat, of Europe.

We are going to Odessawhere we want to see the Cathedral of the Transfiguration, which was bombed last year and has not yet been rebuilt. He, like a wolf on the prowl waiting for the moment to pounce on his prey, disappears into the undergrowth, under a sky of clouds that suddenly become menacing, in the heart of his kingdom of brave men who carry in their hands a little of our destiny.

Has a plan. You can win. He only needs his sisters and brothers in Europe to give him the means to get it going. Will they be smart enough? Brave enough? God will provide.