The wreckege of an Armoured Personel Carrier is seen at an abandoned checkpoint in Olenivka, 20 Km south of Donetsk, on September 1, 2014.
In the corridors of no-mans land between the advancing and retreating armies, writes Roland Oliphant, the evidence of a desperate, panicked, rapid retreat can be found everywhere.
They were driving west when they were hit, and the shells came from behind them with devastating accuracy.
Fifteen mangled, charred wrecks are all that remains of what must have appeared a powerful Ukrainian armoured convoy – until it came under fire as it rumbled down a country lane sometime last week.
A burnt-out minibus (Petr Shelomovskiy)
The armoured personal carriers are blackened shells. The tank has been blown in two. And the lorries are barely recognisable as such.
Half a dozen charred bodies, contorted in incredible pain, are all that is left of their crews. Where the rest have been taken, no one knows.
It is a chilling demonstration of the devastating power of artillery, the decisive weapon in this war. And, as if it were needed, a picture of the dramatic reversal of fortunes in this increasingly bitter conflict.
Just weeks ago, the Ukrainians appeared to be winning in eastern Ukraine.
With more men, artillery and air power, they systematically pushed the pro-Russian separatists back into an ever-shrinking patch of territory around their strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Smoke rises on the horizon (Petr Shelomovskiy)
Without direct military intervention from Russia, the popular wisdom went, the rebels faced certain defeat.
And with Vladimir Putin apparently reluctant to commit ground troops in this proxy war, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko saw a chance to finish the uprising once and for all, launching offensives to encircle Donetsk and Luhansk and aiming to win the war before winter.
But in the past couple of weeks, Russian help finally appears to have arrived. And the results have been disastrous for the Ukrainians.
In a series of counteroffensives on all fronts, the rebels – backed, Ukrainian and Western officials say, by Russian artillery, armour, and regular troops – have reversed the Ukrainian advance, seized their first outlet to the sea, and inflicted a humiliating defeat on the pro-Kiev volunteer battalions.
In the east, they have retaken the strategic airport near Luhansk, which the Ukrainians had held for months.
Also in the east, they have broken an encirclement of Donetsk and taken hundreds of prisoners after trapping a large body of Ukrainian troops in the small town of Ilovaisk, 20 miles south east of the city.
Further south they have opened an entirely new front, seizing the coastal town of Novoazovsk in an apparent preparation for an assault on Mariupol, the region's most important port.
On Monday witnesses confirmed separatist forces had taken Olenivka, a town on the main highway from Donetsk to Mariupol, and they now appear to be pushing south – setting the scene for a two pronged assault on the port town.
Photo:Petr Shelomovskiy
In the corridors of no-mans land between the advancing and retreating armies, the evidence of a desperate, panicked, rapid retreat can be found everywhere.
This wrecked convoy near the town of Komsomolskoye was hit sometime last week – some locals say Tuesday, others are more vague – just as the separatist counter-offensive began to pick up steam.
The column was driving west, in the direction of Ukrainian controlled territory, when it was hit, and impact craters and the remains of rockets still half-buried in the ground suggest the firing came from the east.
The wrecked convoy (Petr Shelomovskiy)
Whoever fired the mortars and rockets that struck the convoy did so with impressive accuracy.
Half a mile from the burnt out column, an undamaged armoured personnel carrier stands in a field, abandoned by its crew after it ran out of fuel.
An undamaged armoured personnel carrier stands in a field (Petr Shelomovskiy)
They left body armour, maps, their tooth brushes, and ammunition in their haste to get away.
Locals, said the one policeman left in town, quickly scavenged the ammunition.
In the centre of the village of Komsomolskoye, retreating Ukrainian troops did their best to destroy the army recruitment office and abandoned another APC after its engine failed when they pulled out of town on Saturday. They took the battery, but abandoned documents and other detritus for the rebels.
Locals search the wreckage for scrap and useful materials (Petr Shelomovskiy)
Locals, who asked not to be named, showed off rockets, grenades, and high-calibre ammunition they said the Ukrainians left behind when they pulled out of the town on Saturday.
That, along with more weaponry which was gathered from the wreckage of the shelled convoy, will be handed over to fighters from the Donetsk People's Republic, one man said – partly out of personal loyalty, and partly out of practicality.
"Who else are we going to give it to? You? You're hardly getting that out of the country."
That may have something to do with the experience of living under occupation.
Villagers strip the blackened remains of the men's vehicles of everything valuable (Petr Shelomovskiy)
"They didn't defend us, they just stole from us," he said. "They showed up, said they were going to blockade the town, and took over the police station for their HQ. When we complained we'd get shelled because of this they said that was none of our business."
"After this my doubts are gone. We're just waiting for the DNR to get here," the man added.
The town was indeed caught in a brief battle last week, and two civilians were killed when a shell landed on their house. It was not clear which side was responsible.
Locals collect scap from the burn-out vehicles (Petr Shelomovskiy)
Back at the column, local villagers busily stripped the blackened remains of the men's vehicles of everything valuable, from ammunition to scrap metal, without appearing too worried about the dead men lying beneath the trees nearby.
The going rate for a kilogram of iron or steel at the local scrap metal merchants is about ten pence. You can get 50 pence for aluminium, and nearly £3 for copper.
At that rate, the hulking remnants of a 13 tonne armoured personnel carrier represents a healthy fortune.
"Give it a week, there will be nothing left," said a local police officer, surveying the scene with a certain distaste.
Another question is what happened to the men who died here.
In the woods a few yards from the destroyed column, a discarded tourniquet, a bottle of iodine, and some tablets show where someone had scrabbled with a military first aid kit. It is unclear whether its owner had survived.
"I thought no more than ten died because someone said there were a lot of wounded taken in ambulances," said Ruslan, one of several locals picking through the wreckage.
But that seems unlikely.
Eight lorries, six armoured personnel carriers, and one tank were reduced to ashes in a few minutes here. It is likely tens more died than the six unburied bodies The Telegraph found nearby.
Meanwhile, a haphazard effort to retrieve the wounded from another battle is still under way.
A dozen ambulances manned by unarmed and visibly nervous Ukrainian soldiers and medics gathered on the road south of the rebel-held town of Starobeshovo on Monday evening, hoping to collect wounded prisoners from the defeated encirclement in Ilovaisk under a deal with the separatists.
It does not always work out. On Sunday's convoy, said one medic, the rebels allowed the rescue column through, only after arresting everyone with a shoulder patch of the Donbass battalion – one of the volunteer units that was fighting in Ilovaisk.
Pro-Russia separatists on road south of Donetsk driving on APC left by Ukrainian army. Road all the way to near Mariupol is under Russians control. No Ukraine troops in the vicinity. (September 2).
At the entrance to the town of Starobeshevo, a handful of rebel gunmen confirmed a convoy of wounded Ukrainians was meant to come through, once their commander has come to an agreement with the Ukrainians down the road.
But it seemed the handover comes with conditions.
"Maybe those under 20 can go, and those over 20 we arrest," said one gunman to another.
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