Pskov (Russia) (AFP) – Anastasia and Elizaveta Grigoryeva hold up a photo of their father faintly smiling, smartly dressed from head to toe in military uniform. It’s an image no longer recognisable to the 18-year-old twin sisters — not since their father left to fight in Ukraine some six months ago and returned “mentally hurt”. “He was there for the most intense fighting, under shelling, everything,” Elizaveta says from Pskov, near Russia’s border with Estonia. The psychological scars her father has brought home from the battlefield have built pressure on a family already at odds over whether the conflict is justified. And their story points to a broader issue, one uncomfortable for the Kremlin — that fighting in Ukraine is tearing apart some families.
