BY ALINA POLYAKOVA
APRIL 14, 2015
An Atlantic Council delegation on March 30 inspected the damage wrought by Grad rocks fired by Russian-backed separatists in Luhansk Oblast.
Luhansk Oblast – Ukrainians are waiting for war to start again. Since a ceasefire agreement went into effect in February, the winter has been relatively quiet in Luhansk Oblast, marred only by sporadic rockets fired from the territory of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR). In many respects, life appears oddly normal in the small towns and villages along the border of the LNR and Ukrainian-controlled Luhansk.Parents walk with their children along the narrow roads, grocery stores are open, and there is the occasional group of teenagers smoking and loitering around bus stops. But these normal scenes are jarringly interrupted by handwritten warning signs. “Danger, do not walk here,” written in bright red letters hangs on one school building in a village outside of Sievierodonetsk. Fresh shelling sites from missiles fired by Russian-backed separatists are just a few miles away from the normalcy of small city life.
But the locals know that this uneasy peace can soon yield something much worse. The Minsk II ceasefire agreement did not produce a stable ceasefire, but at least it helped to usher in a relative lull in the fighting. Russian military convoys pour into Ukraine on a daily basis with weapons, supplies, and soldiers. In Luhansk Oblast and elsewhere across Ukraine, people are bracing for the next Russian attack.
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