Pervomaisk, Ukraine — “In the Moscow-backed ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’, two friends and I headed over one morning to the war-ravaged town of Pervomaisk near the front line. On the road there, our minder (assigned to us from the regime and who later became a close friend - long story) cranked up California Dreamin' on the car stereo as we sped over the rolling landscape. He was in high spirits. "We register with the local division, then set off to the front! We have monsters to kill!" he shouted in jest, eyes glinting. Forty miles later, a handful of well-armed soldiers checked our documents at a roadblock and called in a military escort. We headed into Pervomaisk in a convoy, led by a rebel in a yellow Lada, as the vast steppe buckled into a valley. At the edge of the town was Lenin, with an unholy mess of spent artillery shells at his feet”