In eastern Ukraine, Russian speakers juggle complex identities

Once upon a time, it was a Russian man who would walk across the border from his home into the Ukrainian village of Milove, and ring the church bells that summoned the faithful from both sides of the frontier to prayer.

But that was in the old days. Now the border is closed, demarcated by a barbed wire fence erected by the Russians that illustrates the growing rift between the two neighbors. Somewhere on the other side, an estimated 130,000 Russian troops are massing.

Not that the residents of this drab, snow-covered outpost have seen any preparations for war, other than two newly deployed Ukrainian border guards brandishing assault rifles who were strolling up and down their side of the frontier last weekend. Nor do they seem to be giving the prospect of conflict much thought; many villagers dismiss it as remote.

That might be because a Russian invasion would tear deeply at their sense of who they are. Mainly Russian-speaking, ruled from Moscow for