East Ukrainians guard against mortar bombs and coming autumn chill

(Reuters) — Waiting for a lull in fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels, Nikolai Batyshchev ventures out with his chainsaw and wheelbarrow to collect firewood to fend off the damp autumn chill.
Left without natural gas or power due to fighting over nearby Donetsk airport, Batyshchev and his neighbors are guarding not only against mortar bombs that have pounded their village of Spartak, but also the approaching Ukrainian winter.
«Acacia is what you want. It burns hot and long and there’s a bunch of them right over there,» said Batyshchev, 50, who last Saturday built an oven in his basement using spare bricks.
By the end of this week, temperatures are forecast to drop below freezing in the sharpest cold snap since war broke out in April between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatist rebels. More than 3,700 people have been killed in the fighting.
«There’s no sense in staying in our apartment, the windows have long been shattered. Down there it’s warm and quiet,» Batyshchev said flashing a gold-toothed grin.
«And a tree will last you three days,» he added, his breath visible in the cold air.
Dozens of Batyshchev’s neighbors have also constructed outdoor ovens that serve as communal kitchens for those in the nearby two-storey apartment buildings, most of whom simply lack the money to leave.
Despite a Sept. 5 ceasefire agreement between Kiev and the rebels, fighting continues for Donetsk airport, which neither side is willing to give up. Both claim to have at least partial control over it, and Kiev’s military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said on Tuesday Ukrainian troops had successfully defended against a rebel attack.
The rebel lines are close to Spartak and at one point they even sheltered in one of its courtyards, making the village a target for the opposing government forces.
Spartak has become a byword for destruction among residents of nearby Donetsk, the rebel stronghold where power, natural gas and water are still largely available.
Alexander Zakharchenko, separatist leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, recently tried to calm fears over the coming winter saying the rebels had enough coal to see the region through.
For Spartak, however, utilities like power lines and gas pipelines have remained down for the last three months.
Valentina Poltavskaya, 50, who lives in an apartment building next to Batyshchev, says volunteers hand out humanitarian aid in other parts of Donetsk but that she fears traveling during constant mortar bombing.
«All we have are the vegetables that we have grown ourselves or that others gave us before they fled,» said Poltavskaya, dumping the pebble-sized potatoes into boiling water on a makeshift stove built in front of her apartment building.
Nearly every building in the Spartak region has been either damaged or destroyed. Some stand only as a pile of bricks.
Poltavskaya, who worked in a nearby grocery store, says she and her husband sleep in a storage room in the basement, having sent their 10-year old son to live with his grandmother.
 Tears well in her eyes, but with effort she does not allow herself to cry.
«This is our life: we leave the basement to come out and cook; we leave the kitchen to escape incoming mortar bombs,» she says with a look of exhaustion.

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