DEBALTSEVE, Ukraine (AP) — When the wind picks up, the rattle of the corrugated iron roof of a destroyed gas station can sound like artillery.
Four charred tanks sit stranded nearby, machine oil splattered on the ground, while a pick-up truck lies on its side surrounded by shrapnel.
Debaltseve, the center of one of the fiercest battles of Ukraine’s war, lies in ruins three weeks after it was captured by Russia-backed separatists.
The struggle for the strategic rail hub — a sleepy town with a pre-war population of 25,000 people — became one of the darkest pages in the ongoing conflict in eastern …read more
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
