Towns and cities tend to be located in the lower valleys, where rivers and meandering lakes lie on thick reed banks. Above the ridges of the ridges, the landscape fades for miles around.
It is a place of light and space: vast skies, long roads and distant horizons. In times of war, it makes one incredibly vulnerable.
It is at the height where the Russians have made their best advances to the east, and where the great cannons of both sides maneuver, trying to find and destroy each other at a distance of more than a dozen miles. .
Wide rape fields and barely likely to ever collide are marked with shell craters and rocket tail sections.
Along the horizon, smoke rises from burning fields and villages where artillery from one side or the other has found a target. Grad’s rocket drum is as regular as an insect’s whistle.
Humans have disappeared, giving way to the streets of the village to free cattle: ducks, chickens, the occasional goat.
Where there are trees, the armies are wrapped in mantles of leaves and branches. Where there are buildings, they are limited to wineries.
Where there are none, they dig as much as they can. Depth means security.