Donetsk, Ukraine (CNN) -- In the city of Donetsk, the devastation wrought by weeks of fighting between pro-Russia rebels and Ukrainian forces is all too apparent.

And as the civilians caught in the crossfire sweep up the debris of their homes and livelihoods, they are hardened against a president they say is killing his own people.

Alexander Omelyavenko, a Donetsk resident, told CNN, "We are Ukrainian but they kill us so we probably need our own country. Because these people in Kiev, they are not brothers for us."

Another Donetsk resident, Victoria Khrushova, wiped away tears as she told how her family had been forced to hide from the shelling in cellars.

"We live underground. It was so hard for two weeks -- especially 27th, 28th, 29th -- but only today is quiet," she said.

The husband of a 34-year-old woman killed outside a block of flats last Wednesday wouldn't talk to CNN, saying he was in shock. He made it down to the cellar with their small child but she simply didn't have time. A 50-year-old woman was killed with his wife.

It's a story which repeats itself over and over in dozens of apartment blocks, with civilians being killed by the constant shelling around Donetsk. Windows are shattered, holes blasted in walls and blackened rafters which once supported the roofs of homes stand in bleak outline against the sky.

The victims are the human face of a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding even as diplomatic efforts to curb the fighting plow on.