Ukraine Photo Blog

Haydarma, a Tatar, says he is ready to give his life to drive Russian forces out of Crimea. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

Members of the Tatar battalion say they are not ruling out an attack by Russian forces. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

Members of the Noman Chelibijihan Battalion are mostly Tatars but group leaders tell VOA there are also Ukrainians, Chechens, and Afghans. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

Tatars have organized a battalion and set up a camp near the new, unrecognized border between Ukraine and Russian-ruled Crimea. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

Azime Umerova (L) and Rustem Umerov were children when Stalin's security forces deported them from Crimea in 1944. To them, Mocow's annexation of the peninsula has been another chapter in a long history of Russian persecution of the Tatar people. (L. Ram

Scars of the early days of the war in 2014 remain fresh, Donetsk region, Ukraine, March 6, 2016. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

The glass appears freshly shattered, but is from the shelling of two years ago, Donetsk region, Ukraine, March 6, 2016. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

Two years later, much of the damage of the Ukraine conflict's early battles remains untouched, March 6, 2016. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

Viktor Tukaylo escaped Donbas after his home was shelled. Readjusting to life in another part of the country has been difficult, but he says 'we're surviving.' (L. Ramirez/VOA)

Two years into the conflict, newly displaced people are still arriving daily and applying for assistance at the Florivska 9/11 Center, a refugee assistance facility in Kyiv. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

The Florivska 9/11 Center in Kyiv. The sign says 'donation reception point'. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

Viktoria Vasilevskaya says she will not return to her home city of Luhansk as long as it is under control of separatists. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

Volunteer receives bag of donations for those displaced from war-torn eastern Ukraine. (L. Ramirez/VOA)

Memorials mark the spots where demonstrators were massacred during the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Kyiv. (L. Ramirez / VOA)

Memorials mark the spots where demonstrators were massacred during the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Kyiv. (L. Ramirez / VOA)

Mykola Andrievsky, a Maidan protester, recalls how he helped carry corpses of demonstrators gunned down by ousted President Viktor Yanukvych's forces two years ago. (L. Ramirez / VOA)

Memorials mark the spots where demonstrators were massacred during the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Kyiv, Ukraine. March 1, 2016. (L. Ramirez / VOA)