"I didn't believe it would happen until the war started. I was born in the USSR. All these people are our brothers. Russia and Belarus are sisters. There is a monument called Friendship of Peoples, and we all used to be friends."

A gunner was speaking honestly and very openly from the frontline outside Donetsk.

There is a confusion and bafflement at how this conflict has developed. 

In this location, the frontline has been reported on much less than near Bakhmut and Vuhledar. A Ukrainian unit from an artillery battery can spend up to a month at a time shelling Donetsk. Their temporary homes in the forest are small bunkers with few home comforts, with a stove, a place to eat and rest. 

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This is the biggest conflict in Europe since 1945 and is following a traditional tank and now artillery heavy approach. 

During the attack and defense of Bakhmut, Vuhledar and Soledar artillery has been used extensively – to shell civilian and military targets.

The Ukrainian army needs tanks and fighter jets. What they would really like on this frontline is more modern and accurate artillery guns. 

There is also the realisation that the Russians have a bigger army and an urgent wish for artillery that can be fired much further into enemy territory.

"Mostly they try to fight us with more soldiers," a tank commander says. "Of course, the population in Russia is higher, they mobilize and recruit people. And they send them here as cannon fodder. They are trying to fight us with quantity."

With the Ukrainian crew all aged in their late 40s, they were brought up in the Soviet Union and seem confused at how the conflict has broken out between former allies.

They are veterans of Chernihiv in North Ukraine, where they battled a larger Russian force last year. One tank they are using belongs to a brigade formed by the Soviets in 1942. This tank is now defending Ukrainian sovereignty.

The frustrations continue as both sides use their stocks of former Soviet-era weapons.

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