The troops hide heavy equipment and hardware from view to prevent targeting by separatist artillery. Photos by Louis Dowse.

In Photos: On A Wintry Frontline With The Army In Ukraine's Fractured East -- Louis Dowse, Vice News

A sprawling, heavily fortified line runs along the banks of the Seversky Donets River, splitting a territory that has changed hands between Ukrainian forces and the separatists of the Luhansk People's Republic multiple times throughout the last six months of fighting. This frontline in east Ukraine, nine miles (16km) from Luhansk city, has become a land entrenched in anger and paranoia.

Here, aside from the small minority of civilians who have not been able to flee the fighting, only men and women who will freely kill and die for a monthly stipend of 1000 hryvnia ($63) remain. But while there has been much media coverage and focus on the strategic frontline town of Schastiye, or "Happiness" as it translates in Ukrainian and Russian, it is in villages such Tr'okhizbenka where the realities and stories of this war are too often ignored.

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My Comment: Winter is now settling in .... expect bitter cold days and nights. Regular readers of this blog know that I have been posting photo galleries of this conflict for the past few months .... this one included .... this is just an observation ..... but in most of these photo galleries I never see local civilians "hanging out" and/or supporting the Ukraine soldiers. If they are photographed with Ukrainian soldiers .... it is because they are receiving something from the Army (i.e. food, clothes, etc.). On the rebel side .... local civilians are always photographed with the soldiers. As I said .... just an observation.