Many bright cafes remain open, but you can hear and smell the approaching war. This is a city preparing to become a battlefield.
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Kramatorsk, Ukraine — The streets are all-but deserted, but the mood of Ukraine’s embattled city of Kramatorsk is emblazoned in foot-high letters across the walls of its ravaged buildings. “This house is like my life: Russia ruined it too.”
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You can hear the war constantly in Kramatorsk, which together with nearby Sloviansk is holding the line against Russia’s efforts to capture the whole of the Donbas. You can smell it in the smoke and dust which permeate the air amid the boom of artillery and the rattle of outgoing fire.
The grand square outside the Palace of Culture and the tree-lined parks are empty, while a truck unloads triangular concrete “dragon’s teeth” intended to stop Russian tanks in their tracks. Huge coils of barbed wire offer further impediment, roses and hibiscus flowers blooming in between.
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