
Two exhausted armies are battling for eastern Ukraine. Can either of them strike a decisive blow?
CNN
When Vladimir Putin refocused his war in Ukraine on the country's east three months ago, he did so bruised by the failures of his initial lunge towards Kyiv and desperate for a face-saving success.
After a slow and bloody march through Luhansk was finalized with the capture of the city of Lysychansk, the Russian President might consider himself halfway there.
But the war has arrived at another crossroads and fighters on both sides are steeling themselves for a third act of fighting that could tip the balance of the conflict.

More than two decades ago, on January 24, 2004, I landed in Baghdad as a legal adviser, assigned an office in what was then known as the Green Zone. It was raining and cold, and my duffle bag was thrown into a puddle off the C-130 aircraft that had just done a corkscrew dive to reach the runway without risk of ground fire. Young American soldiers greeted me as we piled into a vehicle, sped out of the airport complex and then along a road called the “Highway of Death” due to car bombs and snipers.












