'People Live Here. Don’t Shoot': The Atmosphere Darkens as Divisions Deepen in Eastern Ukraine

A Ukrainian soldier, his face covered by a khaki military balaclava, checks documents. Concrete slabs piled across the road demarcate the frontline between rebel and government controlled territories. Snowy trenches stretch to either side. In the distance the dull thud of incoming artillery fire echoes across the fields. The car's headlights pierce through the thick dusk fog. Dissatisfied, the masked fighter waves the car back in the direction it came from with just four words: "The road is closed."

The situation in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" is increasingly bleak. Crossing from government-controlled to rebel-held areas in Ukraine's war-torn east is a process that can now take days. With a fresh round of fighting flaring all along the frontier, the roads in and out are often sealed for hours at a time; earlier this month a public bus was hit by grad rocket fire at a checkpoint in Volnovakha killing 12 people onboard.

Even when the area is physically passable, would-be travellers must now also navigate the new Kafkaesque bureaucracy system to obtain special "permits" for crossing government checkpoints. In a classic Catch-22 situation, paperwork for the permit must delivered to offices in Ukrainian territory that are unreachable for residents living on the rebel-held territories without the permit being applied for.

The new regulations, introduced last week, are officially billed as a "security measure" — Ukraine recently declared a "state of emergency" in war-torn Donbas — but in practice the rules also serve to harden a de facto border and tighten the economic stranglehold on the troubled region's residents.

Trapped by artillery fire: Watch Russian Roulette (Dispatch 88) here.

While Kiev has been on the back-foot in its military operations, losing large swathes of territory to separatist forces over last summer, its bureaucratic offensive has proved much more successful.

In Donetsk's Leninsky district, Andriy, a former bank worker who does not want to give his second name, has spent the weekend packing. His wife left the city a month ago and now he plans to join her. "I have an apartment here. It's my home. But now there's nothing. No work, no money, no future," Andriy told VICE News while loading suitcases into the car. "I believed it would get better, but now at 57 I must leave everything I worked for and become a refugee."

With postal services, banking and social welfare systems cut off several months ago, the region is under visible economic strain. The signs on the windows read "temporarily shut" but Donetsk's foreign franchises and chain stores have still not reopened since closing their doors last summer. Supermarket shelves also provide evidence of the cash-dependent economy, closed roads and, uncertain incomes; basic necessities are running out fast while luxury items such as Arabic coffee and French wines linger on the shelves.

For the estimated 60 to 70 percent of the population that remains in Donetsk, the distance to Kiev has never felt further. In Kievskiy district a crowd of people huddle outside Donbas Arena. Just 30 months ago this $400 million glass-walled stadium hosted crowds of more than 52,000 as people from across Europe flocked to Ukraine to watch their teams battle for top spot in the Euro 2012 soccer tournament. Now the queues outside the stadium are not eager sports fans, but impoverished pensioners, single mothers, and disabled people waiting for their monthly ration package.

Each bag contains basic necessities: Sugar, oil, porridge, and preserves. The total of 18,000 calories is barely enough for a person to survive on in the below freezing temperatures, but for the one in 10 people in Donetsk depending on the food parcels from 21 aid distribution centers it can make the difference between life and death. "We haven't received pensions for months. I have no income," 74-year-old Marina told VICE News as she waited in line. "Without this help I would starve."

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Centers are also distributing vital medical supplies — insulin and products needed by women after childbirth are now almost impossible to get in the city's pharmacies.

Andriy Sanin, project coordinator of the Akhmetov Fund's aid distribution scheme, describes the level of need as extreme. "We're only operating in cities and large towns, beyond these places, in the villages, people have literally nothing," he told VICE News.

The situation in Gorlovka, once a hardy mining city, is even worse. In every street, shrapnel scarred buildings, shattered window panes, and hanging electrical wires bear testimony to the barrage of rockets the have fallen on the frontier outpost on a nearly daily since July.

For more than two weeks humanitarian aid distribution points have been forced to shut their doors altogether under heavy shelling. Medical supplies are running low and attempts to bring them in from Ukrainian territory have reportedly been blocked by government forces.

"Care is provided free, but we can only treat people with what we have — and that's running out fast," Tatiyana Phomina, a trauma nurse in the city's hospital, told VICE News.

In every ward a tale of death and destruction can been told. Lying on a bed in the traumatology department 29-year-old Yuriy Pavkov gestures at his left leg. It is encased in a yellowing plaster cast with a metal frame holding the bone in place.

Ukraine declares 'state of emergency' in Donbas but stops short of martial law. Read more here.

Yuriy tells his story as a matter of fact: "On November 14 my left leg was injured by shrapnel and glass when a rocket came through the ceiling. The family living in the apartment above was all killed. Two men, one woman, and a child. My grandmother was standing by the window at the time. She was killed instantly."

Yuriy's parents sit by his side listening quietly. The pensioners have been living on the charity of friends and neighbors since their house was destroyed in the rocket strike. "At first we were moved to another suburb of the city. But then the shelling started there and we had to leave. We have no money and nowhere to go," Yuriy's mother said while holding back tears.

But as the war stutters into its 10th month, for many people frustration is increasingly giving way to anger. A video released earlier this week on social media appears shows a man known as "Givi," the commander of the notorious rebel "Somalia battalion," brandishing a machete at a row of Ukrainian soldiers. Grabbing a knife he slices their patches from their uniforms and forces them to eat it. Later the prisoners were paraded through town and taken to sites were shells had killed civilians. "You're are animals. You're lucky not to be hung," one woman in crowd screams as the men pass by. Others jostle to the front to deliver a punch or a kick.

In Gorlovka a desperate final plea to humanity is scrawled on a garden fence in red spray paint: "People live here. Don't shoot."

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Follow Harriet Salem on Twitter: @HarrietSalem