With thousands now dead, Ukraine refugees say aid is welcome but peace isbetterPeople who have fled fighting in eastern Ukraine find temporary accommodations at a summer camp for children in the Stavropol region of southern Russia. (Eduard Korniyenko/Reuters)

By Michael Birnbaum August 22 at 7:00 AM

SHCHASTYA, Ukraine – Zhanna Sologub doesn’t know if the rocket that struck the

courtyard of her house this month was fired by pro-Russian rebels or Ukrainian

government forces.

What she does know, she says, is that the biggest humanitarian gesture either side

could make right now is to stop the fighting.

Amid intensifying battles Friday for control of key cities in eastern Ukraine, Ukraine

and Russia are clashing over the delivery of food, medicine and other supplies to areas

hit by the conflict. But aid, some residents say, is not as critical as peace.

“People are able to survive even without electricity and water,” Sologub said as she lay

bandaged in a hospital in this government-held village eight miles from Luhansk, a

Ukrainian city close to the Russian border that has seen some of the worst combat of

the four-month conflict. “But you can’t prepare yourself for bombing.”

Luhansk has been without electricity or water for 20 days, city officials say. But

Sologub and her husband were determined to tough it out in the house they built there

with their own hands. The rocket attack fractured one of Sologub’s legs and severely

wounded a foot. Her husband suffered a spinal injury.

The first trucks in a Russian aid convoy crossed into eastern Ukraine on Friday after

more than a week's delay amid suspicions the mission was being used as a cover for an

invasion by Moscow. (AP)

The fighting is fueling a growing refugee problem as Luhansk, a city of 425,000 people

before the conflict, empties out and as residents of Donetsk, about 90 miles to the

southwest, flee the hostilities there. The United Nations estimates that at least 190,000

residents of eastern Ukraine have fled to other parts of the country, and it said 197,000

have taken flight to Russia, based on figures provided by the Russian government. An

additional 28,000 are believed to have taken refuge in other countries.

More than 2,000 people have died since fighting started in April, the United Nations

says. Many of the casualties have occurred in recent weeks as the Ukrainian military,

pushing into dense urban centers, tried to deal a final blow to rebels who have been

forced to surrender much of the territory they once held.

“We were hoping it wouldn’t end this way,” said Iryna Verygina, the pro-Kiev acting

governor of the Luhansk region.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to

meet in Minsk, Belarus, on Tuesday, along with their French and German

counterparts, in what would be their first face-to-face discussions since early June.

Ahead of the meeting — which some officials in Kiev hope will be a first step toward a

negotiated end to the conflict — Ukrainian forces appear to be trying to advance as far

as they can to improve their bargaining position. The civilian death toll has surged in

recent days, reflecting the intensified fighting.

At the crumbling red-brick hospital in Shchastya, whose name means “happiness” in

Ukrainian, shelling and rocket attacks in recent days have been so loud and so

constant that nurses sometimes close the rickety windows to try to block out the noise.

Doctors, most of whom are volunteers from elsewhere in Ukraine, say they are

receiving an adequate, if not bountiful, amount of medical supplies and other aid. But

they are short on equipment, their X-ray machines are rudimentary and the three

operating rooms are easily overwhelmed on days such as one two weeks ago when 13

injured people came in.

Even in Luhansk, doctors say, some hospitals continue to function, although the fuel

for their generators is running low after almost three weeks without electricity or water

from municipal utilities.

Everyone is learning to live with uncertainty.

“We’re within range of the rebels’ Grad

systems,” said surgeon Anton Nosik,

referring to Soviet-era multiple-rocket

launchers that the two sides use to spray

rockets onto each other’s positions. “But

we’re trying not to think about that.”

In a refugee transit camp in Svatove, a

government-held town in the Luhansk

region about 50 miles from the fighting,

dozens of people fleeing the war arrive every

day. Although there are peaceful swimming

holes in the lazy river that passes by the tent

city, the scars of war are very present. Many

refugees were startled by the resemblance of

the camps’ showers to rocket launchers.

Fireworks for a wedding one recent evening

set nerves on edge because they sounded

much too much like the violence that people

had just left behind.

The first thing the camp offers new arrivals is a shot of cognac and a chance to talk to a

counselor, camp administrator Sergey Yakukhin said.

After the cognac, he said, “people sigh, and then they begin to talk.”

Many in the camp said that they stayed in Luhansk as long as they could but that the

shelling simply become too intense. When food supplies ran low, they mixed flour with

a touch of water and baked unleavened bread, if they had a way to cook with fire.

Families swim in front of a transit refugee camp in Svatove, Ukraine. (Michael Birnbaum/The Washington Post)

Those people willing to endure long lines and the risk of shelling can still buy certain

food staples. But prices have nearly tripled for cooking oil and quintupled for

cigarettes.

“We already know when it’s dangerous or not. If you hear the whistle of a rocket, then

you know you need to lie on the floor or go in the basement,” said Nadya Poselyeva, 52,

who fled Luhansk a week ago and who was flying a tiny Ukrainian flag from the corner

of her bed frame in the olive-green military tent she is sharing with 19 other refugees.

All the refugees can tell of friends and family who have died or whose homes have been

destroyed. One of Poselyeva’s neighbors was killed. Another neighbor’s house was

destroyed by shelling. Another house went up in flames, she said.

Poselyeva was a receptionist at a university dormitory until the building was taken

over by rebels. She stopped work about a month ago because it was no longer safe to go

out, she said. After the Ukrainian National Guard warned that it could not guarantee

the safety of her house, she fled with clothes for three days, expecting to be able to

return shortly. That time still has not come.

“We pray every day that it will end soon,” Poselyeva said. “We're waiting to go home.

We don't want to go anywhere else.”

Michael Birnbaum is The Post’s Moscow bureau chief. He previously served as the Berlin correspondent and an educationreporter.

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