One morning in May, my photographer Max and I hired a driver and set off for the quiet, terrified countryside around the city of Donetsk in search of clarity. After a week in Ukraine, we had discovered that it was impossible to understand what was happening in this restive region from Washington, Moscow, or Kiev, and equally impossible from Donetsk: There was one building besieged by separatists, surrounded by a calm and indifferent city.

As soon as we left the city limits, we came across a giant blue truck and a few dozen armed men in fatigues. Around them buzzed a flock of photographers. We hopped out of the car and went to investigate, but it turned out clarity would be elusive here, too.

These were the men of the Vostok battalion, a group of fighters who wanted the region to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. They had just pulled back from a nearby firefight with what they said was the Donbass battalion, a pro-Kiev militia. But some of the Vostok men believed they had been fighting Right Sector, a right-wing group that has been active on the Maidan and was then vilified by the Kremlin as the muscle behind a fascist junta in Kiev.

The blue truck was loaded up with the casualties of battle: three Vostok boys, two civilians. A man with a gaping chest wound was left sprawled on the side of the road. He had swastika and S.S. lightning bolt tattoos right above the gash. The Vostok men explained that he was a member of Right Sector.

“How do you know he is Right Sector?” I asked.