The two houses in what had been no-man's land between Russian and Ukrainian forces are badly damaged by shelling, there is no central power or heating and the surrounding fields are heavily mined, making them unworkable.
Yet the Kovalyov brothers — Stepan who is 80 and Volodymyr who is 77 — and their wives have decided to stay in the isolated farming village of Posad-Pokrovske in southern Ukraine to live out their days in the place they know best.
It will not be easy. The elderly couples survive off meager state pensions and rely on relatives and volunteers for food.