Ukraine's front line: Where lives turn on distant decisions

If war comes, it is as likely as not to strike first in eastern Ukraine, where the pro-Russia separatists have been in control since 2014. In Russia, across the border, more than 100,000 troops are gathering, and thousands more are going into position for what Russia says are military exercises on Ukraine's border to the north with Belarus.

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 the lives of those on 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 the Second World War.

The soldiers in Zolote 4 have been defending against Russian encroachment for years. They are just a few hundred meters from pro-Russia separatist fighters, who are on the other side of a checkpoint that no one can safely cross. The soldiers assume that's where the snipers are, though they've never seen any gunmen.