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Gallery|Conflict

On Ukraine’s front lines, Europe’s forgotten war grinds on

Conflict continues to blight the lives of civilians still living on the front lines in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

The last checkpoint before the front line in the village of Slavne, eastern Ukraine. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]

By Sara Cincurova and Guillaume Binet

Published On 21 Nov 2021

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On November 21, 2013, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv saw a wave of protests – later known as the Euromaidan – which sparked a series of events followed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and a war in the east of the country.

The 2013 protests took place after then-president Viktor Yanukovych chose not to sign an agreement that would have tied Ukraine more closely to the European Union, and instead opted for closer ties to Russia.

The protests faced a violent government crackdown but culminated in the toppling of Yanukovych in February 2014.

However, on February 27 and 28, 2014, pro-Russian gunmen took control of the Crimean Peninsula, which has an ethnic Russian majority.

In April 2014, pro-Russian separatist activity spread to Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, escalating into an armed conflict.

Years later, the war continues.

In the front-line village of Opytne in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk, only 36 residents remain out of more than 1,000 who used to live there before the war.

Aleksandr, 86, has been forced to live in his bathroom, the only place in his house where the walls remain intact.

“I hear shooting every day,” he told Al Jazeera. “But I have lost my only son and I have nothing more to lose. After all my neighbours fled, I collected the pets they left behind. I have twelve cats and dogs who will never leave me,” he said.

The armed conflict has resulted in a total of at least 3,393 civilian deaths and more than 7,000 casualties since 2014, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’s October 2021 report.

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Between 1 January and 30 September 2021 alone, 18 people have been killed, including three children. While active fighting continues along the front line, the toll includes deaths and injuries related to landmines and explosive remnants of the war.

A dire humanitarian crisis along the contact line also continues to affect civilians on both sides of the conflict.

According to the Kyiv Office of the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (or ECHO), 3.4 million people in Eastern Ukraine are in need of humanitarian assistance, including 1.3 million elderly persons and 442,000 individuals with disabilities. They frequently face difficulties with accessing quality healthcare, social care and protection, proper sanitation and coping with freezing winter conditions.

Many of these vulnerable people have no choice but to remain living in the war zone.

The village of Opytne, still under Ukrainian control, was completely destroyed by shelling and shooting. During heavy fighting, as many inhabitants had already left, some remaining inhabitants wrote desperate messages on their gates indicating that they still lived there and pleading not to be attacked. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
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Aleksandr, 86, is the last inhabitant of his street in the village of Opytne, in the Ukraine-controlled area. Out of more than 1,000 people who lived in the village prior to the war, only 36 remain. Aleksandr has had to live in his bathroom for several years because all the other rooms in his house were destroyed by shelling. An NGO has bought him a bed. Despite the hardship he faces, he said he was still happy living in the village. "Life in the war zone is beautiful, everyone helps one another," he said. "I have a bed, I work in my garden. I have potatoes and onions. I live a happy life." [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
A destroyed house in the village of Opytne. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
Vera, a 76-year old woman, lost her sight due to shelling in Chasiv Yar in 2014 and is now helped by local volunteers. "I went out onto my balcony to see what was happening outside. I saw the heavy shelling. Something inside of me froze," she said. "The next morning, I couldn't see. I was running among the other houses on my street, shouting: 'I am blind!'" [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
A sign that says: "Stop, mines!" in Ukrainian and Russian in the front-line village of Slavne, bordering the last military checkpoint in the government-controlled area of eastern Ukraine. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
Eight-year-old Fylyp is the only child his age living in the front-line Ukrainian-controlled village of Orikhove. He has no one to play with. His only friends now are the elderly people who still live in the village. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
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Fylyp and his mother, Krystyna, 32, in front of their house in Orikhove. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
Destroyed houses in the village of Opytne. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
Maria, 86, in her house in Orikhove. "I survived World War II and the famine of 1947. But I will not survive the Donbas war," she said. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
The front-line village of Orikhove. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
Maria is the owner of the only shop in the front-line village of Orikhove. "During a heavy shelling on June 22, 2014, me and people who came to buy bread hid together in the basement of the shop. People were sharing their stories with me while the soldiers were destroying houses around us. I cannot leave this shop, even though I don't earn enough and I am exposed to COVID; if I close, people will die of hunger," she said. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
Children playing in the front-line village of Slavne. Only five children live there now. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
Nastya, a mother of two, in the Ukrainian government-controlled village of Slavne. "What hurts me the most is that even though winter is approaching, I cannot afford to buy my children shoes. They have to wear sandals," she said. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]
An abandoned dog in the village of Slavne. As most people fled the front-line villages, hundreds of abandoned pets can now be found. [Guillaume Binet/MYOP/Al Jazeera]