塹壕掘る少年「僕たちの使命」　ウクライナ前線の村

【チェルボネＡＦＰ＝時事】ウクライナ南東部の村に住むミハイロ・アノパさん（１５）は、ロシアが本格的な攻撃を仕掛けてくる事態を恐れ、眠れない夜を過ごしていた。そして、行動を起こすことにした。（写真はウクライナ・チェルボネ村近くで塹壕を掘る少年）
　アゾフ海沿岸のチェルボネ村。アノパさんは、問題を抱える家庭の少年たちと共に、親ロシア派が実効支配する東部で戦うウクライナ兵のために、塹壕（ざんごう）を掘り始めたのだ。
　「ロシアが攻撃してくるかもしれないと牧師から聞き、悪夢を見るようになった」アノパさん。「今はウクライナ兵を助けるために塹壕を掘っている。僕たちの使命になった」と、誇らしげに話した。
　ウクライナでは２０１４年、ロシアが支援する大統領が親欧州連合（ＥＵ）派によって退陣に追い込まれて以来、ロシア語話者が多数を占める東部の情勢は悪化の一途をたどっている。
　東部２州は政府軍と親ロシア派武装勢力との戦闘の舞台となり、これまでに１万４０００人以上が死亡、１５０万人が避難を余儀なくされた。経済も大きな打撃を受けている。
　現在は、北大西洋条約機構（ＮＡＴＯ）拡大をめぐるロシアと西側諸国との対立から、ロシアによる侵攻への懸念が高まっている。
　アノパさんは、ペンテコステ派教会のゲンナジー・モフネンコ牧師（５３）が監督する、問題がある家庭出身の子どものための施設に所属している。
　モフネンコ牧師は、４０人ほどの少年たちに規律と塹壕の掘り方を指導している。全員で祈りを終えると、少年たちに「きょうは地下室部分を補強する予定だ」と伝えた。「事態は深刻」だが、「（戦争への）準備は整うだろう」と、重々しく語りかけた。
　チェルボネ村では２０１８年１１月、小規模な衝突を契機に初めて塹壕が掘られた。
　牧師や少年が活動する場所からは、アゾフ海が見渡せる。晴れた日には、以前に比べ多くなったロシアの軍艦が行き来するのが見える。
　モフネンコ牧師は、少年たちは塹壕掘りなど建設的なことをしていると感じるときは生き生きとしていると話す。
　「笑ったり遊んだりもする」とモフネンコ牧師。「ただ心の奥には強い恐怖が宿っている。少年たちは生きてきた大半の時間を兵士の背中を見て過ごしてきた。そして窓の外に広がっているのは前線なのだ」【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/02/22-12:20）

Ukrainian teenager Mykhailo Anopa had been suffering sleepless nights worrying about a full-on attack from Russia. Then he decided to do something about it.
The 15-year-old joined other boys from disadvantaged families digging trenches for soldiers serving on his country's eastern front and facing off with Russian-backed separatists.
When our father, the pastor, said there might be shelling, that Putin might attack, I started having nightmares, because that's what I would think about before bed, he said.
We dug trenches to help Ukrainian soldiers. Now, we are reinforcing them. This has become our responsibility, he said with pride.
Ukraine has been trapped in a festering conflict across parts of its mostly Russian-speaking industrial east ever since a pro-EU revolt deposed a Moscow-backed president in 2014.
The war has claimed more than 14,000 lives and forced 1.5 million people from their homes.
It has also drained Ukraine's economy and remained a constant drag on the former Soviet republic's aspirations to enter the Western fold.
Now Ukrainians fear Putin's confrontation with the West over NATO's expansion could lead to an all-out invasion by the more than 100,000 Russian troops poised just across the border.
Anopa belongs to a centre for children from broken homes overseen by Pentecostal pastor Gennadiy Mokhnenko.
The 53-year-old has just returned to the Ukrainian front after a trip to the United States and is busy instructing his group of 40 or so boys about discipline and proper trench-digging techniques.
Today, we are going to reinforce basements, the pastor says, after leading a group prayer.
We will buy some more gas canisters, develop an evacuation plan. Each one of us has to prepare a small bag with clothes and documents, he tells the group.
In the evening, I will check how ready you are.
- 'Huge fears' -
Pro-Western sentiment runs high in Mokhnenko's class. The pastor's office is adorned with Ukrainian and US flags whose poles are supported by empty artillery shells.
Mokhnenko himself is dressed in house slippers and a camouflage Western-style uniform.
The situation is very serious, he tells the boys gravely. But we will be ready.
The trenches around the eastern village of Chervone, on the Sea of Azov coast, were first dug during another but much smaller military escalation in November 2018.
Then, a Russian warship shot at and intercepted a Ukrainian ship that had tried to pass from Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odessa to the Sea of Azov.
But the Kremlin's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in the weeks following the 2014 revolution makes such trips treacherous.
Crimea is a peninsula that controls a strait connecting the two seas, and the strait is patrolled by Russian gunboats.
The resulting clash in 2018 saw shells fall near Chervone and prompted Ukrainian soldiers to start preparing for a bigger war.
On a clear day, the boys in Mokhnenko's class can now see more Russian warships moving across the Sea of Azov.
A week of much bigger naval manoeuvres involving more than a dozen Russian warships and nearly 20 other boats are setting nerves jangling in the Black Sea.
Pastor Mokhnenko says boys such as Anopa are more cheerful when they feel like they are doing something constructive such as digging trenches.
The children laugh and play a lot, he says.
But buried beneath that are huge fears. Years of their lives were spent watching the backs of soldiers. And out of their windows, all they see is the front.