Ravaged by ongoing war, people in Ukraine's Luhansk region want the shooting to end
KATERYNIVKA, Ukraine – War is bleak. In Ukraine, it is also very cold.
Alexandra Koskina’s house is sinking in snow, its broken windows are covered with foil insulation to try and keep the cold and freezing winds at bay.
"It is useless to put the glass back in, the next artillery blast will blow out the windows again," said Koskina, 68, as she opened the door to her home here – just yards away from the frontline between Ukrainian military forces and Russia-backed separatists – while wearing a winter coat, a scarf and a woolen hat. It smelled of poverty and a wet cat inside.
Koskina’s small house sits on the so-called point of contact – the unofficial border – in Luhansk, a breakaway region that since 2014 Ukraine has been trying to wrestle back from the separatists supported by Moscow. The most affected people of this crisis in eastern Ukraine heat their homes, schools and clinics with coal – if they can afford it – or with firewood. Koskina, whose pension is just $80 a month, says she is saving every piece of wood this winter.
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While Ukraine's simmering conflict with the separatists never went away, the area has come back into focus internationally in recent weeks as the U.S. and its NATO allies have expressed concern that a buildup of about 100,000 Russian troops near Ukraine reflects Moscow's intention to invade its ex-Soviet neighbor. The Kremlin says it has no plans to invade, but it has offered little optimism that its security demands about the NATO alliance's eastward expansion will be met.
A region devastated by war
In 2018, Koskina's home was hit by a stray military shell. Larisa Gritsenko, a local humanitarian worker, said it split the house in two, "like a little cake."
"People who have a warm house, an indoor shower, toilet and live without artillery blasts every night would not understand us," she said.
There is no running water in this devastated region; hundreds of residents in Katerynivka and neighboring Zolote pump their water from wells.
Before the war, Koskina was an entrepreneur. Her sister died soon after an explosion caused by the shell that struck her house. Now she lives alone on a small. During the winter, the temperature drops to 59F.
About 14,000 people have died in the fighting between Ukraine and Russia-backed rebels in Luhansk, Donetsk and other swathes of the broader eastern Donbas region. In 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea, a peninsula that juts out into the Black Sea.
Koskina and others here said that after intensive fighting between Ukraine and rebels diminished around 2015, those living on both sides of the frontline were simply forgotten.
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'We are so tired of shooting'
Artillery fire dictates the rhythm of life in villages like Katerynivka: quiet during the day, terrifying blasts after dark. The war has separated families, with many stuck on opposite sides of the border. When Luhansk region held parliamentary elections in 2019, 49.7% voted for the pro-Russian party.
"The war whispers right into your ear, it is so close," 85-year-old resident, Varvara Vegera, told Paste BN. “We are so tired of shooting, all we want is for this war to end.”
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When Paste BN visited Katerynivka, midmorning shoppers with quiet, tired eyes filled up a tiny food store. The shop's owner, Yelena Adilova, a cheerful lady in a furry hat, was trying her best to lighten the somber atmosphere. There was a large poster of a TIME
magazine cover in the corner of her shop featuring New York.
"I am ready to fly to New York, just take me away. After this, I can do business anywhere around the globe," she joked, as her customers waited to be served.
During his election campaign in 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised to put the end to the conflict in one year. Many people in Luhansk hope that Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be able to reach a peace deal, or at least an understanding to stave off an escalation of the 8-year-old war.
President Joe Biden warned late Thursday that Russia might invade Ukraine in February.
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Locals are not counting on officials in Washington or Europe to come to their rescue.
"Nobody wants to come here, listen to us and see what it's like," said a shy blond Yelena Popova, 25, who works as an artist Club of Culture, a community center in Katerynivka where residents can paint, knit, dance or sing.