A clash of loyalties is dividing opinion among residents in Bakhmut – a town on the front line in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Sometimes it slips out as a whisper. More often, it is hidden behind euphemisms and shrugs – and carefully ambivalent replies. And then, once in a while, a fiercely pro-Russian sentiment is simply blurted out, like the crack of a gunshot, here in the rolling green hills of the Donbas.
“This is Russian territory. Ukraine is the occupier here,” said a man in overalls, standing with a group of council workers. They had been clearing weeds in Bakhmut – a Ukrainian town currently within easy earshot of Russian artillery.
