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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Western-supplied weapons land by the planeload in Kyiv, soldiers and civilians alike wait here with helpless anticipation for decisions made by people<\/a> who know little about Ukraine and even less about the eastern front lines \u2014 a battle-weary region near where Russia has massed tens of thousands of soldiers in a troop buildup<\/a> that U.S. President Joe Biden said could mount the largest invasion since World War II.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019s where the snipers are, though they\u2019ve never seen any gunmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After three days with no shooting, \u201call of a sudden they opened up with grenade launchers and firearms. One mortar shell flew over and fell in the field behind us. Two more hit between ours and the next position. In 15 minutes, everything was quiet again. Why? What for? Nobody knows. And that\u2019s how it is around here,\u201d said Oleh Surhov, a Ukrainian soldier who fled Crimea in 2014 after the Russians seized the peninsula. He joined the fight soon after he evacuated his wife, children and grandchildren to western Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zolote 1 through 5 got their names decades ago during the Soviet era \u2014 the name means \u201cGolden\u201d \u2014 when they were labeled as units of the local coal mining operation. Now 1 through 4 are in Ukraine and 5 sits less than a kilometer (half-mile) away, across the checkpoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sense of waiting for someone else\u2019s decisions has also infected the nearby village of Katerynivka, which bears the scars of eight years of shelling. It has newer trenches, which are heated by rough wood stoves whose warmth draws nearly as many dogs and cats as soldiers. The luckiest trench cats get taken back by soldiers when they rotate off the front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe joke that hope is the last thing to die. All of us are waiting for peace. Neither our children nor grandkids can visit us,\u201d said Liubov, a local woman who wouldn\u2019t give her last name. \u201cWe talk on the phone and that\u2019s enough. Let\u2019s wait until peace comes!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/UkieFront1.jpg.jpg\")