LUHANSK, Ukraine – Months of daily shelling reduced the east Ukraine city of Luhansk to a ghost town, silent but for the explosions.
On Sunday, following a cease-fire agreement signed Sept. 5, residents in the second-largest city held by pro-Russian rebels in east Ukraine emerged in a rare show of jubilation that was half celebration, half simply relief at the reprieve in the violence.
The same wasn’t true of the largest rebel stronghold of Donetsk, where fighting around the government-held airport has caught many residential neighborhoods in the crossfire. The city council of Donetsk confirmed in a statement Sunday that there were civilian casualties but couldn’t specify how many.
The cease-fire deal has been riddled by violations from the start, and both sides have made it clear that they are regrouping and rearming in case the fighting starts anew.
But despite repeated violations of the cease-fire and tough talk on all sides, the peace deal has allowed for a return to some kind of normalcy for cities like Luhansk, as shell-shocked residents emerge from the basements where they have been hiding for weeks and come to grips with the damage incurred by nearly five months of fighting.
Th population of about 250,000 people, reduced because of the war, celebrated “city day” on Sunday, which opened on a somber note as priests led hundreds of residents in prayer in commemoration of those killed during a government-mounted siege.
Damage to basic infrastructure left much of the city without power and running water since early August. Around Luhansk, smashed windows, burned-out buildings and craters in the road are testimony to an imprecise, often indiscriminate shelling campaign.
