(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)The shell that reamed the Russian soldiers' vehicle scattered them in all directions. Eight years of fighting over the country’s breakaway Russian-backed eastern region have morphed into a vicious war for its existence. A nuclear plant has been attacked; Russian shells rain on civilians, many of whom now sleep by the thousands in basements and subways. Before the war, she lived in Luhansk city, barely 10 miles away Shchastia, where like many of the provincial capital’s residents she would come to her family-owned dacha here. Soldiers check vehicles at a checkpoint on a main road entering Kyiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday.
