Bellingcat founder Elliot Higgins says Russia’s propaganda films have got worse but that Russian viewers, especially the older generation, tend to believe fake TV footage

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The video shows a ghostly scene. A night-time battle is taking place in a forest. There are flashes and mysterious bangs. An unidentified figure cries out in pain. The wounded man is wearing a helmet. Otherwise there are few clues as to where the footage was shot, or what exactly is going on.

A TV report by Russia’s state-run channel one gave the answer. The man seen in eerie silhouette was a Ukrainian saboteur, it said. He was part of a diversionary team sent across enemy lines into pro-Russian separatist territory. His mission? To blow up a local chlorine plant in the rebel-held town of Horlivka, the channel said.

Border regions appear unprepared for hundreds of people arriving from separatist-controlled areas in Ukraine

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The first stop for Ella Fyodorova after she fled her home in eastern Ukraine was a windblown tent camp just across the Russian border, part of a mass evacuation effort that observers fear may become the pretext for Russia to launch a formal intervention in Ukraine.

“I wanted to stay, but my husband came home, and said: ‘Get your things together, we’re going,’” she said as she wrestled her two-year-old son into a blue snowsuit to walk to the public toilets nearby.

In divided Luhansk, residents have lived in the shadow of conflict for years. But now the shells are getting louder and closer

Raisa Malashenko was trundling her rusty bicycle, laden with bags of food, through the centre of Stanytsia Luhanska on Saturday afternoon. The 81-year-old did not flinch as booms of artillery sounded in the distance.

Her five children have all left this frontline town, some for Russia and others for safer parts of Ukraine. “It’s just me and my cow now,” she said mournfully.

Analysis: Just as Russian armour and helicopters are edging up the border, Russian messaging is also advancing to the brink

The omens of impending war we were warned about now seem to be lining up like the horsemen of the apocalypse.

The field hospitals have been set near the border, blood banks have reportedly been brought in. On the information war front, a dossier of alleged Ukraine war crimes circulated at the UN security council, and a video popped up purporting to show an attempted Ukrainian attack on chlorine tanks in the Donbas.