At the Front Lines: a Journey to Sloviansk, Eastern Ukraine

The situation in eastern Ukraine escalated into an armed conflict between the separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DNR and LNR) and the Ukrainian government after numerous demonstrations by pro-Russian and anti-government groups in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions took place. In July, Hromadske journalists were supposed to travel with the Donbas volunteer battalion to the front lines. However, the battalion's movement got delayed and the journalists set out for Kharkiv themselves. Once there, the Hromadske crew ended up traveling with Ukrainian forces who were carrying supplies to Sloviansk including thermal imagers, binoculars, radio sets, ankle boots, military uniform and water. At the time of the filming, a ceasefire between the separatists and Ukrainian forces was set to expire in several hours.