As the sun set over the cratered fields around Debaltseve, a group of pro-Russia Cossack fighters were retrieving boxes of anti-tank artillery rounds and two armoured vehicles left by Kiev’s forces on the side of the Rostov-Kharkiv highway, which was littered with mangled cars and turret-less tanks.
Shattered petrol stations and garages attested to weeks of intense fighting for the strategic town. Two troop transport trucks that had crashed into each other, scattering boots and clothing, spoke of the Ukrainian forces’ rushed, chaotic retreat this week.
“Donetsk and Luhansk regions are our home. We will take back our land,” said Andrei Dyomin as he tethered one broken-down fighting vehicle to a truck. “Every ceasefire they move up their armour and start killing us again. There won’t be a ceasefire, there will be war.”
Alec Luhn 