Will Putin strike?

A game of nerves on Ukraine’s frontline

-  Luke Harding

For Misha Novitskyi, the question of whether Russia will invade Ukraine is not theoretical. The enemy is just 50 metres away behind a concrete slab. From time to time Russian voices float eerily across a wintry no man’s land of ragged trees and scrub.

“When they light their stoves you can see the smoke,” Novitskyi – a senior lieutenant in the Ukrainian army – said, speaking from what is in effect Europe’s eastern front with Russia. He added: “Every day they shoot at us.”

The conflict between Kyiv and proRussian separatists has gone on for nearly eight long years. There are first world war echoes. Both sides face off along a fixed 400km “border ” or line of contact that snakes across Ukraine’s Donbas region.

There are muddy trenches, fortified command posts and buildings smashed up by shell fire. Novitskyi defends a former textiles factory. It is now a ghostly and roofless ruin. On a wall someone has scrawled a helpful reminder: “Fuck up and you die.”

All is quiet until it isn’t. Last Thursday morning Ukrainian soldiers were making their way towards a nearby frontline position overlooking the city of Donetsk. The separatists are based at its wrecked airport, along what was once the runway. Three shots rang out: sniper rounds.

The soldiers quickened their pace. A pheasant rose from a yellow field marked out with red signs warning of mines and unexploded ordnance. Old-fashioned metal wires connect the brigade’s forward post – an anthill-like embankment with bunkers and ladders – to its nearby village HQ.