6 Hromadske Dispatches About Humanitarian Disaster In Eastern Ukraine
A unique glimpse inside everyday life amid the brutal war.
The war in eastern Ukraine is Europe’s largest ongoing conflict. It has claimed over 5,500 lives and displaced more than a million people, according to U.N. Those who remain trapped inside war-torn areas struggle to survive. Neither the Ukrainian, nor the defacto separatist government has taken responsibility for the thousands of people stuck in the middle of Ukraine’s conflict zone. In these dispatches, Hromadske reporters often risked their lives to tell the world about people whose stories have not been heard. Scroll through and find about Europe’s biggest humanitarian catastrophe of the century.
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produced by Maxim Eristavi and Katherine Jacobsen
1. Pervomayske. At the Front Lines
The village of Pervomayske lies at the edge of Ukrainian controlled areas and is only a few kilometers away from the Donetsk Airport, a major flashpoint in the conflict between separatist and Ukrainian forces. The town is a ghost of its former self. The villagers are living side-by-side with soldiers and pensions haven’t been delivered to the elderly in months.
Almost all of the buildings in the area have sustained mortar and Grad missile attacks. Residents have been living without electricity and gas. Many of the past residents used to live in Donetsk, the regional center, but the road there is now closed and jobs are scarce. Donetsk is the hub of pro-Russian separatists and Pervomayske is still under Ukrainian control.
2. Stanytsia Luhanska: Living in a Conflict Zone, Ukraine
First the area was taken over by separatists, then it was recaptured by the Ukrainian army and residents aren’t really sure who to blame for the destruction the conflict has left behind.
This video shows the complicated situation across eastern Ukraine from a small town in Stanytsia Luhanska, located in the Luhansk oblast.
3. Donetsk History Museum Caught In The Crossfire
The local history museum in downtown Donetsk city was once a home to relics of Ukraine’s past wars. Now destroyed by shells, it is a casualty in Russian-Ukrainian war.
The Russian invasion and ongoing fighting has devastated the region, displacing thousands across Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk areas.
4. Novoaidar: Front Line Hospital in Eastern Ukraine
The Novoaidar District Hospital is located north of the city of Luhansk and is the closest medical facility to the front lines. Wounded civilians and soldiers alike are brought to the hospital for treatment
Hromadske spoke with two women who were injured during the shelling of a village near Luhansk. Both women received amputations due to shelling. Another woman nearby has multiple sharpnel wounds in her abdomen and face.
Surgeons at the hospital saved the women’s lives, but both will need lengthy treatment and rehabilitation that is not available in the local hospital.
5. Living on the Edge of a Conflict
Separatists and Ukrainian fighters have vied for control of a cluster of small villages northwest of Luhansk city that serve as a nerve center of electricity for the region.
The villages — Stanytsia Luhanska, Tryokhizbenka and Shchastya — have continued to fall under heavy shellfire.
6. First Snow on the Front Line. Ukraine.
Hromadske At Front Lines
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