The soldier peered through a periscope from the bottom of his trench. Mud seeped into his boots, his clothes and into every available crack in his gear as he walked the narrow space where he spends his day.

Were it not for Zakhar Leshchyshyn's mobile phone, his life in the trenches would be little different from that of a soldier a century ago. The screen lets his mind wander away from Zolote, a town in eastern Ukraine on the contact line between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists.

"Another explosion in Luhansk. It’s reported that the explosion happened at a gas pipeline. It was seen and heard almost everywhere in the city,” he read aloud.

Trenches, mines and artillery are hardly the stuff of modern warfare, but Ukraine’s far east feels like it is falling further behind modern life by the day. Like other towns in the region, Zolote has stepped out of time.

Electric lines lose their current and twist at crazy angles after artillery strikes. People wistfully remember their last hot shower, the last time they read themselves to sleep by the light of a bedside lamp.

Leshchyshyn's world is circumscribed by the labyrinth of trenches he commands. Roots poke out along the walls of the trench, but they're not enough to hold up the mud when a shell explodes nearby.

He and his soldiers fortify the crumbling walls using hand shovels. When they return to their basement barracks in a house with no roof, the same shovels scrape the congealed mud from their boots. When night falls, the village is dark and quiet enough that Leshushun's men and the separatists sometimes shout curses at each other from their respective trenches.

He is pessimistic about the days to come. Ukraine's military has started to send tanks farther east, and the forests that line the region's dark roads are filling with camouflaged machinery and bivouacs.

"If there is no political agreement, things will get resolved with military power,” he said.

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