Only 50 miles north of what locals call “the line,” where rebel territory begins, and with much of Sloviansk bullet-sprayed and in ruin, the city of around 100,000 exists in limbo, suspended between cautious relief and fear that it will once again fall under the control of pro-Russian separatists.

The three-month rebel siege of the city represented the beginning of the war in eastern Ukraine. With parliamentary elections in Ukraine scheduled for October 26, there is widespread concern that Moscow-backed separatists will prevent voting in large swathes of the country, undermining the vote’s legitimacy. Their self-proclaimed government, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR), which claims authority over most of the Donetsk region, recently threatened to hold its own elections on November 2 in both Sloviansk and the Azov Sea city of Mariupol—the last two major cities in the eastern region to resist rebel control. Despite the signing of a ceasefire between separatists and the Ukrainian government in early September in Minsk, fighting in and around the city of Donetsk has persisted, killing Ukrainian soldiers, civilians, and a Swiss national working for the Red Cross. For the rebels, who are bent on creating what they and Moscow call Novorossiya—a historically loaded term to describe southeastern Ukraine—Sloviansk and the port city of Mariupol are strategically important.

In Aslanyan’s class of 40 psychology majors, whose grades she said have been negatively affected by the trauma of war, adolescent laughter quickly turned to stony silence when I asked how they were coping. “We’re afraid it will go back to how it was before,” said a teary-eyed 17-year-old student with thick black hair. The students spoke to me on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals. Her classmate, who sported a nose ring and towered over her peers at six feet, said she did not feel safe. “Even though the military are meant to protect us, seeing army trucks still freaks me out,” she said, referring to the scores of government soldiers, their automatic rifles taped in the blue and yellow colors of the national flag, manning the train station, main roads, and Sloviansk’s Central Square.

Stark reminders of the fighting are omnipresent: A memorial to a mass grave of civilians killed during the conflict sits in the city center, decorated with neon-colored plastic flowers; in the main cemetery, it is hard to miss the oblong mounds of 34 separatist graves, buried over June and July. Each Sunday afternoon, around 100 residents gather on the main square to rally support for Ukrainian troops. “We’re fed up of not being able to make plans,” a young man named Andrei told me at one such gathering. The group met by a large statue of Lenin with its neck wrapped in the Ukrainian flag, before marching around the center and chanting, “Sloviansk will stay in Ukraine!” Passing cars honked in solidarity.

The encompassing feeling of uncertainty hints at how life could look across eastern Ukraine, regardless of whether the rebels or government forces ultimately win. Ukraine’s coal-heavy Donbass—comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, traditionally the country’s industrial powerhouse—is under severe economic strain. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said earlier this month that the war had destroyed 40 percent of Donbass’s industrial potential. Through September of this year, Ukraine had mined half the amount of coal that it had during the same period last year, according to the country’s Independent Trade Union of Miners. In Sloviansk, major factories producing electricity and coking coal, used for heating and steelmaking, are working at half capacity, government officials said last month. Suspended projects—half-finished repairs to the sewage system, water pipes and sidewalks destroyed by war and awaiting fixes—dot the city, as if construction workers have gone to lunch en masse. ATM machines are often missing money for days on end, electricity is spotty, and public transportation has yet to be fully restored.