‘All you can do is cry’: Donbas evacuees face uncertain future in Russia

Border regions appear unprepared for hundreds of people arriving from separatist-controlled areas in Ukraine

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The first stop for Ella Fyodorova after she fled her home in eastern Ukraine was a windblown tent camp just across the Russian border, part of a mass evacuation effort that observers fear may become the pretext for Russia to launch a formal intervention in Ukraine.

I wanted to stay, but my husband came home, and said: Get your things together, we're going,'" she said as she wrestled her two-year-old son into a blue snowsuit to walk to the public toilets nearby.