AVDIIVKA, Ukraine (AP) ‐ U.S.-made medical equipment, night-vision devices and countermortar radar make a difference for Ukrainian troops fighting Kremlin-backed separatists on the front line of the standoff between Russia and the West. Sometimes, it’s the difference between life and death.
So when $400 million in U.S. military aid to Kyiv was held up this year, Ukrainians got nervous.
Every little bit of assistance helps in the World War I-style trenches of Avdiivka, where conscripts and volunteer soldiers use shovels to shore up mud walls, chop wood for makeshift stoves, and cook their own food from local vegetables and canned supplies.
Rostyslav Pokotylo shows off the American flag inside the case for his night-vision gun scope, which he credits with saving his life in 2017.
"I ended up in a combat zone ... If not for this, who knows what would have happened," he says. "With its help, I could see the enemy. I saw the enemy first, and we opened fire."
As impeachment hearings play out in Washington, Ukrainian troops at the front described their hopes and fears to The Associated Press in the five-year conflict that has taken 13,000 lives and still simmers on, sporadic gunfire punctuating the autumn calm.
In the hearings, Democrats in Congress say U.S. President Donald Trump pressured his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to investigate former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, a Democratic rival, while withholding U.S. military aid to Kyiv. Trump says the aid was held up over corruption concerns. 
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