VILKHIVKA: They spend much of their day clearing their gardens of shrapnel, digging up potatoes or chopping wood to prepare for the fast-approaching winter.
The coal miners of the village of Vilkhivka in eastern Ukraine haven't been working for months, forced to down tools by the shells they say are still falling almost every day.
"As miners, we used to get coal for the stove," says Pavel Krivonosov, 64, who despite his age still used to work at the nearby state-owned Zhdanivka mine.
"Now the mine is shut, so we'll have nothing for the winter. And without electricity..." he trails off. "It can get down to minus 30, with the wind it's even worse."
He surveys the last crop of tomatoes, grapes and red peppers in his large vegetable garden, collecting mortar shrapnel and other fragments from various munitions into a grey metal bucket.
Vilkhivka, which lies about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk, has been caught in the firing line as Ukrainian forces shell the pro-Russian separatists dug in nearby.
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