SOLEDAR , May 29 — The Ukrainian farmer thought it was fear that made her neighbours age so much in the week since she saw them come out for market day on the eastern front.
But Barshchevska was mostly worried about what the fourth month of Russia's invasion might do to her pigs and cows. The Russians have crept up to Ukraine's historic salt mining centre in a pincer movement that threatens to ensnare some of its toughest troops. The road leading northwest is cut off by a Russian advance aimed at seizing the symbolically important twin cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk -- Ukraine's centre for the eastern war zone.The trenches to the south suggest that Ukraine is preparing to fall back to a new defensive position that leaves places such as Soledar behind."If it kills me, it kills me," pensioner Volodymyr Selevyorstov said of the rocket and artillery fire that could smash into his stall at any moment.
Its roads are now littered with destroyed government buildings and warehouses that the Russians hit with daily rocket and missile fire.They then try to move before the Russians have a chance to locate them and return fire. "Where can I run? They are shooting everywhere you go, so where can you possibly run?" she asked in exasperation.