Less than 2 kilometers from the front line near Mykolaiv, Inna Kuriy and her neighbors are now hiding in a basement all day long: "We stay here anyway, because here I am at home." Their once lively residential area of some 12,000 residents has turned into a ghost town; only the sound of shelling disturbs the quietness in the street. A former colonel in the soviet army, Alexander Zadera once fought along with Russian soldiers. As he stands in his mother’s destroyed apartment, he says he doesn’t understand the situation: "It never even occurred to me that we could fight against each other! Absurd!" IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES ARRANGED IN SEQUENCES