Nadezhda Ivanovna had plenty of lucky escapes during four months of shelling against her Donetsk neighbourhood. But on Saturday, Ukraine's war finally closed in, with a shell destroying her house and killing her seven pigs.
"It happened early this morning. My house was hit while there was shooting all over the place. It completely burned. I had seven pigs and they were burned to a cinder," Ivanovna, 62, said.
She was at the small market, or what's left of it, in a northern neighbourhood of rebel-controlled Donetsk, to sell three bottles of milk.
Surrounded by damaged buildings and broken windows in the Kuibyshevsky neighbourhood, near the destroyed Donetsk airport, she showed AFP a milk bottle chipped by shrapnel. "I also have a cow, which luckily was not harmed. It's about all I have left. It's by selling her milk that I can live," she said.
Ivanovna, possibly in shock, talked calmly, and showed no reaction to the noise of artillery and Grad multiple rocket firing other than to raise her voice.
She said she would spend that night with neighbours. "My son and my daughter have left Donetsk. They worked at the airport before," she said.
Looking at packs of barking stray dogs, a woman standing by said, "Is that how we are going to spend our old age? Do you know what it means to spend your days in this situation -- this huge mess?"
- Tense elections -
Separatists in charge of Donetsk are holding leadership elections Sunday. All the candidates support the separatist rebellion, which Ukraine accuses neighbouring Russia of fomenting. A similar vote takes place nearby in the city of Lugansk.
But in the northern Donetsk neighbourhood it is not easy to find a single polling station.
Several residents said they did not know where they would go to vote. Numerous schools that would usually be used for polling stations have been damaged in the shelling between rebels and Ukrainian forces.
Nikolai, a rebel with a grenade launcher, said: "When bombs are falling around you, you don't waste time finding out where the nearest polling station is."
Vera, 45, who was selling eggs in the market, said she would vote "against the Fascists" -- an insult against Ukraine's pro-Western government that has become widespread in the separatist regions and in Russia's powerful state media machine.
However, retired teacher Lyubov Georgiyevna, 75, said, "I won't vote. It won't change anything."
She said above all she wished she could sleep at night without the sound of explosions.
"I am afraid every night. I wake up because of the artillery exchanges," she said, flinching at the noise of outgoing Grad rockets.
"They just reconnected our water three days ago," she said. "With this shelling, it might not last long."
The shooting went on all the previous night, she said. It could be heard continuing throughout Saturday afternoon.
Nadezhda Ivanovna had plenty of lucky escapes during four months of shelling against her Donetsk neighbourhood. But on Saturday, Ukraine’s war finally closed in, with a shell destroying her house and killing her seven pigs.
“It happened early this morning. My house was hit while there was shooting all over the place. It completely burned. I had seven pigs and they were burned to a cinder,” Ivanovna, 62, said.
She was at the small market, or what’s left of it, in a northern neighbourhood of rebel-controlled Donetsk, to sell three bottles of milk.
Surrounded by damaged buildings and broken windows in the Kuibyshevsky neighbourhood, near the destroyed Donetsk airport, she showed AFP a milk bottle chipped by shrapnel. “I also have a cow, which luckily was not harmed. It’s about all I have left. It’s by selling her milk that I can live,” she said.
Ivanovna, possibly in shock, talked calmly, and showed no reaction to the noise of artillery and Grad multiple rocket firing other than to raise her voice.
She said she would spend that night with neighbours. “My son and my daughter have left Donetsk. They worked at the airport before,” she said.
Looking at packs of barking stray dogs, a woman standing by said, “Is that how we are going to spend our old age? Do you know what it means to spend your days in this situation — this huge mess?”
– Tense elections –
Separatists in charge of Donetsk are holding leadership elections Sunday. All the candidates support the separatist rebellion, which Ukraine accuses neighbouring Russia of fomenting. A similar vote takes place nearby in the city of Lugansk.
But in the northern Donetsk neighbourhood it is not easy to find a single polling station.
Several residents said they did not know where they would go to vote. Numerous schools that would usually be used for polling stations have been damaged in the shelling between rebels and Ukrainian forces.
Nikolai, a rebel with a grenade launcher, said: “When bombs are falling around you, you don’t waste time finding out where the nearest polling station is.”
Vera, 45, who was selling eggs in the market, said she would vote “against the Fascists” — an insult against Ukraine’s pro-Western government that has become widespread in the separatist regions and in Russia’s powerful state media machine.
However, retired teacher Lyubov Georgiyevna, 75, said, “I won’t vote. It won’t change anything.”
She said above all she wished she could sleep at night without the sound of explosions.
“I am afraid every night. I wake up because of the artillery exchanges,” she said, flinching at the noise of outgoing Grad rockets.
“They just reconnected our water three days ago,” she said. “With this shelling, it might not last long.”
The shooting went on all the previous night, she said. It could be heard continuing throughout Saturday afternoon.
