Johnny Miller
Press TV, Donbas
The battered front line village of Golmovksy—the front line is only a hundred meters away. There is a deadly tension here as the streets are almost deserted.
Apart from military positions which I’m not allowed to film for security reasons, it is mostly the elderly who remain in the town. They have nowhere else to go and so are stranded in the middle of an artillery dual between opposing armies.
The boom of outgoing fire—a pro-Russian artillery piece is close.
This man tells me he’s 76 years old. He fears the coming winter, as his windows have been smashed by a blast. He also blames the Ukrainians for the war and says they were sent here by the Americans and Europeans.
We head to the neighboring village of Zaitsevo, which was fully taken by pro-Russian forces a couple of weeks ago.
Amongst the deadly tension of this village is the incongruous site of a rose garden. It houses a monument to those killed by Ukrainian shelling. It was built 18 months before the Russians sent their army across the border in February. A reminder that Ukraine has been bombing pro-Russian areas here for eight years.
With peace talks unlikely anytime soon, front line positions are fluctuating across hundreds of kilometers of Ukraine. Both sides will want to gain as much territory as possible before the winter comes, making advances more difficult.