Lenin in Donetsk.

Ukrainian Independence day celebrations near Maidan.

Igor lost his home on the outskirts of Donetsk to a rocket attack. He lives with his grandmothers in a retirement home for engineers only a few kilometers away from the line of contact.

Debaltseve auto garage.

Teresa Fillmon of Tallahassee, Florida built a home in Toretsk to service international adoptions and spread the word of God. After the war started, the adoptions ceased but Theresa decided to stay and provide relief to local children. She has also made it her mission to feed and outfit Ukrainian soldiers. Front-line positions are two kilometers away.

Igor’s grandmother describes the night of the rocket attack that destroyed her home. She has been left to take care of her grandson since his mother left for Russia months ago.

The front line in Ukraine winds like a scar through the countryside. What used to be bucolic farmland has been transformed into a 21st century battle space. Innocuous farm buildings like this old pig sty serve as observation posts and sniper’s nests.

Towns and villages on the front line are mostly devoid of their civilian populations. But new, heavily armed residents have arrived. In Pisky, only a few kilometers outside of Donetsk, abandoned luxury homes garrison hundreds of Ukrainian government soldiers.

Getting ready for the night’s fight. Most days combat starts around 5pm and continues until sunrise.

Fighting is a daily ritual. No one side attempts to take ground from the other. The shooting is more of an acknowledgment of existence.

In February 2015, soldiers from the Donetsk People’s Republic, with military assistance from the Russian Federation, routed out the Ukrainian army from the Debaltseve pocket in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Here, a separatist soldier shows off a severed finger he kept as a war trophy.

The E40 highway stretches from France to Kazakhstan and is a major international thoroughfare. After the battle of Debaltseve the transcontinental connection was severed.

Many of the weapons used in the war in Ukraine produced hot fragments of steel. A walk through the landscape of the battlefield showcase grim reminders of past shootouts and artillery strikes.

Soldiers on both sides of the conflict have been forced to use civilian cars as combat vehicles due to a lack of military resources. It is common to see heavy machine guns mounted on the back of Japanese pickup trucks with custom paint jobs.

Ukrainian soldiers fighting the in the Donbass region of East Ukraine hail from all over the country. Some soldiers speak only Ukrainian while others speak only Russian. This often leads to serious communications issues.