Olena Semykina, the owner of a village shop in east Ukraine, voted for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy five and a half years ago, hoping the fresh-faced political newcomer would end the fighting unleashed by Russian proxy forces in 2014.
The screech of an artillery shell over her leafy village in the war-battered Donetsk region and the plumes of dark smoke billowing on the horizon suggested that her hopes for his first term had fallen short.
"We expected the war to end, like he promised. But the war hasn't ended. There's even more fighting. It seems to me that it's become even more intense," the 43-year-old said in the village of Kleban-Byk, where invading Russian forces are fast approaching.
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