The sleeve of rebel fighter Yuri Protsenko shows his allegiance in the ongoing conflict in his native Ukraine: He wears the patch of the largest Russia-backed separatist militia in the country, the Vostok Battalion, which he joined in February of last year.
In Kyiv, Igor Panasyuk is readying himself for combat against rebels like Protsenko. Stout with a silver moustache, the 49-year-old joined the Ukrainian army to protect eastern Ukraine “from becoming another Chechnya,” where Russians and separatists waged two bloody post-Soviet wars.
But while Protsenko and Panasyuk are adversaries today, they are erstwhile brothers-in-arms: Both fought for the Soviets during the …read more
Source: European Voice
