DONETSK, Ukraine—The holiday market in the central square of Donetsk, the principal city of rebel-held eastern Ukraine, has all the trappings of a celebratory time—shiny ornaments, colorful toys, and a cartoon-faced kiddie train on a meandering track. But the aura is more forced than festive, as the region’s people face a new year that gives little promise.
While full-scale fighting in the war between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists died down in 2015, true peace appears a distant prospect. Shooting and shelling erupts sporadically despite repeated cease-fires called under an internationally mediated peace agreement. The latest truce was declared last week by the Contact Group negotiators from Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, but the antagonists each have claimed violations by the other side since then.
It’s an emotional whipsaw for Donetsk’s residents.
“A feeling of peace? Sometimes there is. But when they start to shoot, you don’t feel any kind of peace,” said Alexandra Kirichenko, an 18-year-old student, walking down a street where apartment windows shattered by fighting were blocked off with plywood sheets.
In the central square, a middle-aged woman named Galina was trying to sell toys for parents to give their children on New Year’s Eve, the main day for presents in much of the former Soviet Union. Her mood was as grim as the toys were merry, her words as terse and direct as a telegram from the front lines.
“Uncertainty; you live from day to day; constant tension, fear,” said Galina, who declined to give her last name.
