An excerpt:
“Are they waiting for us?” asked Olga Ischenko, the mayor of Pervomaysk, a rebel-held town on the frontlines of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. She was asking me because I had just been in Popasnaya, a government-held town five miles away. She wanted to know if its people were yearning to be liberated by the rebels. What has happened to these neighboring towns shows just how divided and bitter the region has become since fighting began almost exactly a year ago.
Before the war Pervomaysk’s population was nearly 39,000, while Popasnaya’s was 22,000; the former is a mining town, the latter mostly industrial and agricultural. Identities in this part of Ukraine are fluid and Russian is the lingua franca, but according to the 2001 census a majority of people in the Popasnaya district regarded Ukrainian as their first language, while in Pervomaysk it was Russian. The war has shattered the economies of both and most of their populations have fled, either just away from the front, to Russia, or to other parts of Ukraine. It also has left them on opposite sides.
Just outside the Pervomaysk town hall where Mayor Ischenko works is a statue of Lenin, in front of which have been stacked unexploded artillery shells and the remains of Grad and Smerch missiles fired at her town from Popasnaya. Until January 22, the mayor was Evgeny Ischenko, Olga’s husband, a Cossack militia leader whose forces are part of those of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic. Then he was murdered, so she took over. “It was necessary to take the position,” she explains, “to prevent armed robbery and looting in town.”
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for Saturday, March 28. Check back here tomorrow for more of our continuing coverage.
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