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© FT
In a field near the village of Uspenka, eastern Ukraine, an orange earthmoving vehicle is carving out a trench about a metre deep, nicknamed by some locals the "Maginot line", along the border with Russia.

Serhiy Taruta, the billionaire oligarch who serves as Donetsk province's governor, is paying out of his own pocket for the trench, which is reinforced with massive concrete tetrapods thrown down at strategic points across roads.

Manning a machinegun point at a roadside nearby are two scruffy army reser­vists called up last week who identify themselves as Igor and Viktor. They say they had to improvise to equip themselves for duty.

"Local people are really keeping us going: food, can­ned goods, clothing," says Igor. "They even charge our cell phones for us."

Nearby, several other Ukrainian paratroopers - one wearing gym clothes - are hacking at the cold earth with shovels and have built a flimsy barrier of chicken wire and branches to protect an armoured vehicle in their care.

Ukraine is belatedly rallying to the threat of a possible Russian invasion, helped by private donations from individuals, who have pitched in to help its underfunded army with donations of food, bottled water, blankets and clothes.

The Pentagon sent a shipment of 300,000 meals-ready-to-eat for Ukraine's threadbare military on Sunday, the first US aid to reach it since Russia annexed Crimea on March 21.

Ukrainians who support the government blame Viktor Yanukovich, the ousted pro-Russia president, for having underfunded their military in favour of the widely despised riot police.

"Yanukovich killed off our army," says Dmytro Tkachenko, a member of the Patriotic Committee of Donbass, a union of non-governmental groups and activists who have gathered donations of food, medicine, clothing and money for soldiers.

Some of the thousands of Ukrainian soldiers demobilising from Crimea to the mainland after Russia's annexation have been unable to leave because the military cannot afford to move them.

In recent days, fears of an imminent Russian invasion have receded. Major General Oleksandr Rozmanin, a Ukrainian defence ministry official, said the number of Russian troops deployed on the border was decreasing, although he added that this might reflect a scheduled rotation of conscripts. But a pullback by Russian forces was confirmed on Monday after a phone call between Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, and Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor.

Pro-Russia demonstrations at the weekend in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Lugansk and other Ukrainian cities where separatist and anti-government forces are strongest, saw crowds of a few hundred people each, down sharply from the many thousands seen earlier in March. Military analysts say that the pro-Russia demonstrators bussed in to swell crowds on weekends earlier in March are no longer being paid to attend. They take that as a sign that any possible incursion plans by Moscow are off the boil.

"Four times there were preparations for real [Russian] military operations in Ukraine, and four times they retreated," says Roman Svetan, a security adviser with Donetsk's pro-Kiev regional governor. "I think the Russians were waiting for mass protests and the storming of administrative buildings."

However, pro-government Ukrainians are on guard after Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, laid down a series of demands on "federalisation", protection of ethnic Russians and adoption of Russian as a state language. Kiev rejected the demands as an "outrage" and an "ultimatum".

Donetsk remains on edge after a month that saw a protester killed and one building seized by pro-Russia demonstrators, which police and security services recaptured, jailing 16 people blamed for the unrest.

Witnesses and media have documented cases of involvement in the demonstrations by Russian citizens - identifiable by their clothing, accents or documents - whom they nickname "tourists". Kiev has since mid-March called up more troops to reinforce its borders.

Border guards at the frontier say their Russian counterparts, having left the area, have now returned to their posts. Military analysts took their earlier departure as an ominous sign that a path was being cleared for a possible invasion. Mr Lavrov said last week that Russia had no plans to invade Ukraine.

"Maybe four days ago we began to notice a return of the border guards," says Colonel Igor Mamot, who commands a border guard station at Alekseyivka. Another factor in recent days, says Col Mamot, is the appearance of Russian drones flying by night.

The border force's orders are clear under Ukrainian law, says Col Mamot. "Of course, in case of invasion we have to fight," he says.