At Point 18 in eastern Ukraine, the war grinds on, night after night
Sasha Bak, 7th company’s commander, tours the trenches at one of his platoon’s positions in Pisky, Ukraine. Point 18 is the only place where Bak’s men live above ground; the rest live in trenches like this. (Thomas Gibbons-Neff/The Washington Post)
PISKY, Ukraine — The staccato of machine-gun fire begins at dusk, just as the sunflower fields here turn orange with the setting sun.
A Ukrainian army company of 110 soldiers defends the right flank of this largely deserted village, less than a mile outside of separatist-controlled Donetsk in eastern Ukraine and close to the city’s strategically key airport.
