KRAMATORSK, Ukraine – The temperature dropped down to minus 12 C (10.4 F) in eastern Ukraine and continued to fall. On Jan. 25 afternoon over 200 vehicles packed with colorful plastic bags, suitcases, and exhausted passengers waited on the grimy road in the middle of a windy field to pass through Maryinka checkpoint to the part of the Donetsk region that is under the control of rebel militants.
Some of the people in line had been waiting for longer than eight hours but none of them dared to get out and stretch their legs in the surrounding fields, which are sown with land mines. So they stayed among the armored vehicles and the troop transports full of Ukrainian soldiers and security service offices, waiting, and waiting… to pass through the customs control toward the Russia-backed breakaway territory.
