Trapped by Artillery Fire: Russian Roulette (Dispatch 88)

After a lull in fighting between the Ukrainian military and the Russian-backed rebels of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR) in eastern Ukraine, violence escalated again in mid-January. A ceasefire agreed in September seemed barely worth the paper it was written on. A battle continued to rage around the strategically important Donetsk airport, as the Ukrainian soldiers — dubbed “cyborgs” for their resilience — fought to keep the airport from the DNR. They were unsuccessful. The DNR claimed t