Ukraine's front line: Where lives turn on distant decisions
ABC News
Soldiers and civilians in eastern Ukraine are waiting with helpless anticipation to see if war comes
ZOLOTE 4, Ukraine -- The trenches are dusted with snow and tinged with soot and dirt. Dull colors will cling to them for weeks to come, as the men inside search for enough cellphone signal to hear the latest from the distant capitals that will decide their fate.
Moscow, Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna. Sometimes Kyiv. But only sometimes.
These Ukrainians are far from the Russian ships headed to a naval exercise off the coast of Ireland, from the American-built fighter jets streaming to the Baltics and from the U.S. aircraft carrier steadily sailing the Mediterranean.
As Western-supplied weapons land by the planeload in Kyiv, soldiers and civilians alike wait here with helpless anticipation for decisions made by people who know little about Ukraine and even less about the eastern front lines — a battle-weary region near where Russia has massed tens of thousands of soldiers in a troop buildup that U.S. President Joe Biden said could mount the largest invasion since World War II.
