Vast stretches of eastern Ukraine are now largely devoid of people and industry. If Ukraine is ever to have a vibrant postwar future, it is unlikely to sprout from these ruins.
On another day of scorched-earth artillery barrages in the east, a team of Ukrainian medics did their best to stabilize and assure the survivors, with the din of war all around.
Thirteen members of the Mariupol Drama Theater have reconvened in western Ukraine where they are rehearsing a new play about a Ukrainian dissident who died in a Russian prison camp in the 1980s.
The seizure of three strategic villages confronts Ukrainian commanders with a grim choice: fight on and risk encirclement or retreat and lose the last major centers in the region.