Life under siege: residents fear new surge of war in rebel-held east Ukraine

Local resident Alexander Studenikin, 44, smokes in a basement of a school building where he lives after his house was damaged by shelling, in the rebel-controlled town of Horlivka (Gorlovka) near Donetsk, Ukraine, November 24, 2021. Picture taken November 24, 2021. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

HORLIVKA, Ukraine (Reuters) - For seven years Lidia Lenko has put up with stray bullets flying through her kitchen window and shrapnel bursts that left jagged pockmarks in the green metal fence outside her home.

Now she is living through what she fears is another upswing in the slow-burning war between pro-Russian separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine.