Ukraine's postal workers deliver lifeline under Russian fire

Figure caption, Watch: Ukraine's post office innovation helps isolated communitiesByReporting fromZaporizhzhia oblastEvery morning Igor Smelyansky looks at a vast map of Ukraine on his office wall and decides where he should put his people in harm's way.His aides provide him with live intelligence about Russian attacks and he deploys his teams, balancing their potential operational success against risk to life or limb.But Smelyansky is no military commander. He is the head of Ukraine's state postal service, Ukrposhta.And every day he must decide how far to send his postmen and women into the deadly "kill zone" along the front lines where the threat of drone attack is ever present."If it's too dangerous to go today, we won't go," Smelyansky told us. "We'll go tomorrow, or we'll go somewhere else. The key is to be as agile as you can."Ukrposhta does more than just collect letters and parcels. It pays out pensions in hard cash, it takes payment for utility bills. And it delivers vital food and medicine to people on the margins of society.As such, it offers a lifeline to millions of poor and elderly Ukrainians living in remote villages where shops are rare and trips to the city are exp...