by ZACK BADDORF

I met Alina Podpovetnaya in a park in downtown Mariupol. There’s a war going on to the east of this Ukrainian port city, and I wanted to know what she thought of the situation.

“It’s fucking crazy,” Podpovetnaya said.

An 18-year-old student at Zaproskie University, Podpovetnaya said she fears the Russian military will attack her hometown in order to create a corridor from Russia to Crimea.

The Ukrainian government, the British government and others predict that Mariupol will be the next city that the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic will attempt to seize from Ukrainian control.

The front line is about 10–15 kilometers to the east — and everyone here is acutely aware of that fact.

“The Russians are taking our east and we have to defend our borders,” Podpovetnaya said.

Some of her university friends have joined the fight, including her boyfriend who serves with Ukrainian forces near the Lugansk People’s Republic — a Russian-backed enclave to the northeast.

“I worry about him,” she said while fiddling with her phone. He repeatedly called her during our interview. “I’m happy when he has his phone turned on.”

She said that many of his friends have died in battle, but their deaths are not reported in the media. More than 1,600 Ukrainian soldiers have died since the conflict began.

The city’s billboards are illustrative of the war that’s come so close. “Mariupol, Ukraine!” declared one patriotic billboard.

“Dignity, will and victory!” stated another billboard depicting a stern-looking Ukrainian soldier. “Mobilize — defend our most precious [nation]!”

The billboard identified the soldier as a “Cyborg, nickname Sapper, 33 years old.” Ukrainian soldiers are known as Cyborgs for their supposedly superhuman strength.