Momentum shifts in Ukraine war as Russia advances in the Donbas

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Haggard faces stare blankly from inside minivans ferrying survivors from towns and villages bludgeoned by Russian armor. Ukrainian ambulances carry the wounded and dead from the battlefield, sharing the road with rumbling tanks.

Detonations sound in the distance as lost souls adrift in this ghost city line up for giveaways of food and medicine.

“Soon, the shelling will come here,” predicts Serhii Barkov, 38, his left arm still bandaged from wounds sustained during Russian bombardment of his eastern Ukraine village, Studenok. “Once the shelling starts, you just run wherever your eyes can see,” he says, nervously dragging on a cigarette outside the hospital. “Things will get worse here in a few days. I need to leave.”

For Ukraine, the war has taken a dark, edgy turn in the Donbas, the vast