A mounting toll

Jul 14th 2014, 9:54 by N.S. | DONETSK

The Economist

VLADIMIR PISKUNOV once had roses in his garden, red and white ones lining the patio. He once had tomatoes, ripening alongside the cherry trees. He once had a roof over his house. He once had a wife. All of that was wiped out late in the afternoon of July 12th, when three Grad rockets hit 15 Lyubovich Street on the western edge of Donetsk. One landed directly on his house, blasting a crater through its center and killing his wife Tatiana, who was clambering to the basement for safety.

Mr Piskunov holds the Ukrainian armed forces posted around the city responsible. The direction of the impact and the location of the Ukrainian positions suggest he may be right. But Ukrainian officials vehemently deny shelling residential areas. Instead, they blame rebel militias, accusing separatists of firing on peaceful people in an effort to turn the population against Kiev.

So it goes in the Donbas these days: specious accusations, inflamed rhetoric, and a steadily growing body count. After capturing the former rebel stronghold of Sloviansk, Ukraine's army has brought its “anti-terrorist operation” to eastern Ukraine's two biggest cities, Donetsk and Luhansk. So far, the fighting has been concentrated on the outskirts of both, with heavy (and inaccurate) long-range weaponry doing most of the damage. Exact figures are impossible to confirm, but dozens have died in recent days.

The rebels killed 23 Ukrainian soldiers on July 11th, firing Grads at an encampment near Luhansk. President Petro Poroshenko promptly threatened retaliation, pledging to kill "scores and hundreds" of separatists for every one of his dead soldiers. He turned down a chance to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin at the World Cup in order to concentrate on the conflict. His government charges Russia with funnelling more equipment to rebels across the border near Luhansk, and even briefly crossing it themselves. The Russian government, in turn, claims that Ukraine has dropped an errant shell on a Russian border town, and killed one of its citizens. Moscow warns of "irreversible consequences."

In Donetsk the Ukrainians have been pinching from the north, west, and south. Along a country road roughly ten kilometres outside the city limits, a motley collection of soldiers have set up camp next to fields of blooming sunflowers. The troops on the ground there admit to having and using Grads (as do the rebels) but, as one commander insists, they only fire "precisely, and far from residential areas". (Never mind that Grads are an inherently imprecise system.) These men wear mismatched camouflage, and carry mixed weaponry. They say they are from the army, but it is more likely that they belong to one of the many independent battalions incorporated into Ukraine’s newly formed national guard.

If Ukrainian forces ultimately enter the city on foot, brutal close-quarters combat awaits. Militias have dug in positions along the main roads, and their bases are hidden amidst residential neighbourhoods. At one such location on July 12th, which houses fighters from the powerful Vostok Battalion, over a hundred rebels gathered for lunch prepared by volunteers in the building's high-ceilinged cafeteria. A new heavy machinegun and an anti-tank missile stood in the foyer. Crates of surface-to-air missiles were stacked against the walls.  In the courtyard, fighters showed off a modified jeep with the back seat removed and an automatic grenade launcher welded down in its place.

More troublingly, the units continue to welcome new recruits to their ranks, both cross-border “volunteers” and locals. As more shells fall, the insurgency is breeding its own reinforcements, regardless of who actually has fired the fatal shots. Here, perception is king.

Mr Piskunov, for example, like many residents in recently "liberated" Sloviansk, asks who will pay for his ruined house, and who will answer for his 12 year-old daughter "being left without a mother.” The beleaguered miner sees only one way forward: "to take a gun and fight.”