Halina Rublova (66) sits on a bench in front of her destroyed house on the Kolkhoznitskaya Street. 'When they started bombing, I hid as everybody else from our street in the school, where there is a bomb shelter. Then when the school was hit we escaped to the Club center on Lenina Street. In September we escaped this hell to the town of Rosepnaya. I lost everything, everything.'
Since April 2014, the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Lugansk have been embroiled in a military stand-off between the Ukrainian national army and armed separatists rebels, widely believed to be armed by Russia and assisted by thousands of Russian volunteers and regular forces. By April 2015, over 6,100 people had lost their lives in the fighting, with civilians bearing the brunt of wide ranging fighting.