MARINKA, Ukraine ― A long and jarring mud road, riddled with shell craters, winds from the edge of Marinka to shrapnel-riddled low-rise apartment blocks that now demarcate the end of Ukrainian government-held territory. Four hundred meters away, across a heavily mined field of rough grass, shrubs and tall trees sit the Russian-backed separatists. It’s like many areas across this war-torn section of Eastern Ukraine now ― one minute you’re in a rather normal yet slightly impoverished town, but the next you’re directly in the middle of a war zone.
This war has dragged on so long that many people living in front line towns are now more annoyed by it than anything else. Their initial sadness and despair morphed into anger because they can’t spend just one night without the sound of gunfire, or the threat of a rogue shell destroying their homes.
