in Niu-York, near the front line in Donbass, residents say they are “at the end of their tether”

Donbass became the priority target of the Russian army after the failure of the battle of kyiv. The war in this region of eastern Ukraine, the inhabitants have been living it since 2014, caught between the pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army. The front line is barely two kilometers from Niu-York, a small town of 10,000 inhabitants before the war, half today. “You hear ?launches Svetlana while bombardments resound. It’s almost always like that.”

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Svetlana plans to stay in Niu-York. She does not want to abandon her very old mother-in-law, who depends solely on her. “We are usedshe explains, but we are also at the end of our tether. We are exhausted.” But others, like Sergei, are desperate to leave town. “We can’t flee, because the bus is broken down”explains the 29-year-old man who does not understand those who want to stay.

“They should leave the city to let our army do its job and fight these animals, which could use the population as human shields.”

A feeling that is not shared by everyone here. A lady in her sixties comes home after doing some shopping. She is not afraid of the Russian offensive which is preparing. There is even nostalgia in his words: “I was born in the Soviet Union. I lived in an extraordinary country, a beautiful country.” This small town in the Donbass alone symbolizes the conflict between kyiv and Moscow: largely Russian-speaking and Russophile, it remains attached to the unity of Ukraine.