The armed conflict between Russia-backed separatists and Ukraine government forces has killed more than 5,300 people and displaced more than a million people in eastern Ukraine. As political leaders meet to negotiate and end to the fighting the lives of people living in the region become increasingly desperate.
Tariel, an ambulance driver for the Ukrainian army, collapses after receiving a shrapnel wound to the arm during shelling near a treatment point in Debaltseve, Ukraine. (Brendan Hoffman/NYT)
A pro-Russian rebel walks next to a destroyed tank in the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuglegirsk in the Donetsk region. (Andrey Borodulin/AFP/Getty Images)
A pro-Russian rebel picks up a Ukrainian flag in the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuglegirsk in the Donetsk region. (Andrey Borodulin/AFP/Getty Images)
A patrol made up of members of a Ukrainian volunteers and policemen arrest two men on Independence Square in Kiev who allegedly arrived from Donetsk and are suspected of participating in seperatist activities. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images)
A man walks in a house destroyed after shelling in the Leninsky district of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. (Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images)
A firefighter works to extinguish a fire at a residential block, which was damaged by a recent shelling according to locals, on the outskirts of Donetsk. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)
A pro-Russian rebel carries a cat as he walks past a dead Ukrainian soldier in the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuglegirsk in the Donetsk region. (Andrey Borodulin/AFP/Getty Images)
A Ukrainian soldier gestures as he guards territory near Debaltseve, eastern Ukraine. The government-held town of Debaltseve has been the epicenter of recent battles. (Evgeniy Maloletka/The Associated Press)
A man, seen through a crater created by a rocket, walks underneath bridge in Donetsk, Ukraine. (Petr David Josek/The Associated Press)
A store is open on the outskirts of Slovyansk, eastern Ukraine. (Evgeniy Maloletka/The Associated Press)