Oleksii tells me: "I feel safe here because we are on our land and even the ground will bring me help." That's despite the nearby sound of small-arms fire, exploding artillery shells landing within sight and the roar of Russian jets overhead. The ground he and the small team of Ukrainian troops now occupy is on the border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The same ground that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently declared as being Russian forever. Over the past week the men of Ukraine's D1 National Guard Unit have advanced more than 20km (12 miles) east from the...