A hired worker rebuilds a wall of a heavily destroyed house after the massive shelling with Grad rockets in the town of Novoluhasnke on Dec. 20.

NOVOLUHANSKE, Ukraine — For Larysa Kotova, a 54-year-old housekeeper living in the Donbas frontline town of Novoluhaske, some 600 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, a quiet winter afternoon on Dec. 18 ended up with terrifying shock and nearly certain death.

At about 5 p.m. local time, when she was cooking supper at home, the sky over the town suddenly poured down with the rain of fire and destruction.