FRANCE 24 Exclusive - 'When leaders talk about a ceasefire, soldiers don't believe it at all' - video Dailymotion

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00:00senior reporter Catherine Norris Trent is awaiting us part of a team traveling

00:04through Ukraine and reporting on all the things that are happening which must I

00:08think Catherine make talk of truth really hard to believe to those people

00:13who you're meeting where you are and all across Ukraine this Thursday well that's

00:22correct not once again I mean I feel like it I'm repeating myself when I go

00:26live with the channel every night there's another wave of deadly attack

00:30drones flying across Ukraine tonight we've had air raid sirens here in

00:34Harkiv but it seems tonight that several Shahed drones are centering on the city

00:41of Zaporizhia in southeast Ukraine there so they are coming in for massive attack

00:46and we can imagine that the air defense systems the air defense teams are

00:51working hard to try and shoot them down we've met some of those in recent days

00:55and they've been telling us that they've been relying a lot on American

00:58equipment so you could only imagine what would happen if that equipment were to

01:03suddenly disappear as a result of any future negotiations people here look on

01:09the conferences in the rest of the world the flurry of diplomacy surrounding them

01:13and they look at it with a lot of skepticism and a lot of fatigue they

01:18don't think the help is going to come fast enough to them and they're very

01:21distrustful of outside powers negotiating about their future but I

01:26want to take you now mark to the troops of eastern Ukraine in the Donbass where

01:31there is still despite this limited ceasefire which is apparently been

01:36negotiated despite both sides claiming there have been breaches there is still

01:40a fierce war raging on the front lines and that is where my colleague James

01:46Andre filmed in the truth in the trenches there with the troops of an

01:51artillery brigade and when they hear talk of a ceasefire they don't believe

01:55it at all from a new dugout in the Donbass a Ukrainian artillery unit is

02:01setting up they're adjusting a 1970s American made m109 Paladin hidden in the

02:13treeline the night before it's old equipment but the men say it's reliable

02:18for them this battle is existential I have children and I don't want them to

02:31live under Russia a ceasefire fall fall yes partial no at 640 a.m. they get to

02:50work another long day of pounding Russian positions has begun this is the

02:57front line near the city of Prokhorov an important logistics hub for months

03:02fierce fighting has been raging here the Ukrainians battling to stave off a

03:07Russian advance five Ukrainian soldiers position day in day out command sends in

03:15coordinates they swing into action logging 48 kilo shells and firing wave

03:20after wave most of these men had no choice but to fight they were mobilized

03:48two of them are over 50 they're exhausted and demoralized I just want to

03:55go home it has to end soon so we can go are you tired of course I'm tired the

04:07main threat lancet drones but it is what it is that's war I hope it ends

04:19soon but honestly with our government I can't see an end to it I don't want to

04:25think about it you don't really do much about them you could show their tree

04:45cover doesn't provide much of a hiding place so whenever a drone flies overhead

04:50the men's shelter in their rudimentary living quarters dug below ground the

05:04most important for us is that the enemy doesn't spot our position if they do our

05:09chances of survival are slim this alert over its back out to the firing line the

05:19unit will stay here for a maximum of two weeks to avoid being spotted then

05:26deploy elsewhere as the war rumbles on

05:31now you might have thought you heard a lot of artillery fire in that report but

05:37let me tell you on the day that our team went filming there around 50 shells were

05:43fired at that front line at very intensive front line near the city of

05:47Pokrovsk and that tells you something because we know that the Ukrainian

05:51government has been constantly asking for more ammunition supplies so if

05:55they're using that much ammunition in a battlefield that means the fighting is

06:00intense what's happening here is that Ukraine desperately wants to stop any

06:05Russian troops try and push them back if they can they have they say gained a

06:10little bit of territory there in recent weeks before any negotiations especially

06:15involving Putin the Trump administration freeze those front lines

06:18for who knows how long

06:22after Norris Trent with our team reporting there in Ukraine thank you

06:26very much indeed

FRANCE 24 Exclusive - 'When leaders talk about a ceasefire, soldiers don't believe it at all'

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