Marinka, a small government-controlled town in Ukraine, a stronghold of the separatists and 80km from the Russian border. Photograph: Anastasia Vlasova/The Guardian Vera Basova stands by her house holding a local newspaper. The front page headline says Russia is bringing tanks to the eastern Ukrainian border. âWhat do they want from us? Why are they dragging those tanks here?â Basova asks her neighbour. The 90-year-old worries she will have to go back to hiding in her basement to escape shelling in the war between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbas region that recently entered its eighth year and has taken more than 13,000 lives.