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Features

Shelling, militiamen and shattered villages: welcome to eastern Ukraine’s ceasefire

Here, near the airport, the war has never really stopped. Soon it will resume everywhere

7 March 2015

9:00 AM

7 March 2015

9:00 AM

 

Eastern Ukraine

For a moment, the sound of shelling is drowned out by a thumping beat coming from a camouflaged van. ‘Separatysty [Separatists]!’ says the rousing chorus: ‘The day of your death is here!’ We are with a Ukrainian nationalist militia in a village outside Donetsk airport, which is in the hands of pro-Russian rebels, usually referred to by the Ukrainians as terorysty or bandyty.

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Paul Wood is a BBC foreign correspondent

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