It was hard to tell the combatants apart. The weapons look and sound the same on both sides. Then again, the soldiers firing at each other are practically cousins—so close in language and culture and habit that, in normal times, most foreigners can’t distinguish a Ukrainian from a Russian.
As artillery fire and rockets of various acronyms and millimeters rained down, we crouched in the barn, sometimes even beneath it, shivering like rats, tweeting into the dark about the soldiers trying to kill each other. But we were not supposed to actually ask the soldiers why they were doing it. And they were not supposed to ask us why we were watching. That would be a breach of combat etiquette. Killing is O.K. But to tweet the incorrect acronym for a missile system is an unforgivable faux pas.