The Ukrainian pensioner is still in shock after evacuating from her hometown of Mezhova. Once far removed from Ukraine’s southeastern front line, it’s a place she expected would never come under threat from Russia.
But Lidiia Dudko’s hopes for calm began to fall apart in recent weeks. By extending the reach of its drones and the frequency of its missile and explosive bombardments, Russia has expanded the “gray zone” of Ukrainian territory it threatens, even if the front line barely moves.
The expansion coincides with Russia’s push to capture all of the Donetsk region and beyond, including edging into the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region – where Ms. Dudko’s Mezhova was once considered safe.
Why We Wrote This
Throughout the war in Ukraine, Russia has employed scorched-earth tactics. Now Ukrainian civilians near the long front lines are being forced to flee an intensified bombing and drone-strike campaign evoking “bees let loose from a beehive.”
The result includes widespread destruction of Ukrainian towns and the reported killings of civilians as drone, rocket, and bomb attacks render swaths of Ukrainian territory uninhabitable for the first time.
“Who would ever think this could happen?” asks Ms. Dudko, wearing worn shoes and a headscarf, and holding a handkerchief to wipe away tears, at a relief coordination center in Pavlohrad.
“At the beginning, it was the bombing of houses, then in our backyard,” says Ms. Dudko. “Then there was a feeling of bees let loose from a beehive, there were so many drones. … People just ran away.”
“They want our land, and want all of us [Ukrainians] out of here,” she says.
Ms. Dudko curses Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than 3 1/2 years ago.
“His land is Russia, let him stay in Russia!” she exclaims. “Ukraine is not his.”
That message means little to Moscow, which continues to press Ukrainian forces along a front line that Ukraine says has grown to nearly 800 miles long. In September 2022, Russia unilaterally annexed four Ukrainian regions, including much ground it is still far from conquering.
Seizing all of the Donetsk region is a key ambition, though Russia’s summer offensive here yielded limited gains. Still, in mid-August, Russia’s creeping advance found a weakness in Ukraine’s defenses, leading to a sudden Russian breakthrough of 10 miles in the direction of Dobropillia, a town north of Pokrovsk in northwestern Donetsk.
Ukrainian officials tout a counteroffensive that they say has regained much of that territory. But the surprise Russian advance is a cautionary tale of what happens when even a slice of Ukraine’s defensive line falters: Russia doesn’t control Dobropillia, for example, but a multitude of Russian glide-bomb strikes and constant drone attacks have made it a wrecked ghost town.
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Such battlefield uncertainties mean that relief centers have had to shift farther away from the front. They provide temporary shelter, food, and other support for evacuees contributed by a host of official, nongovernmental, and United Nations agencies. From August, such centers handled 400 people each day, though that number has slowed to 100 at three locations.
“There is no one happy about evacuating from their own house,” says Valentyna Bahrimova, head of this regional Relief Coordination Center. “But this happens. We are sitting here, hoping it will not come [closer] to us. … Some people cry. Some people want to cry, but just don’t.”
Still fending off the Russian assault are cities including Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, which have been in Russia’s sights for more than a year – though Russian drone and glide-bomb attacks rarely stop.
“Nothing has changed, but it is getting worse and worse and worse,” says Ivan Subotin, a Ukrainian firefighter and emergency responder who in 2020 formed Search Donbas, which evacuates civilians and supports them in contested areas.
He describes increasingly harrowing rescues under Russian fire, and how drone bombardments are raising the stakes.
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The front around Myrnohrad – where Mr. Subotin lived until last year – has barely shifted, he says, “but drone distance is growing and growing.” Many apartment blocks are destroyed, including his.
He still receives calls every day from Myrnohrad residents asking to be evacuated – including one call that came through during this interview – but he must decline them unless the evacuee can walk to a safer location for pickup.
“Why would you ever stay there?” he asks, of people who refuse to leave until it is too late. “They only call when they are already wounded, or their house is destroyed, and say, ‘OK, we are ready.’”
In mid-September, Mr. Subotin was recognized by the governor of the Donetsk region for his life-saving work. Yet he is especially concerned about the fate of his brother, whose village has been caught in the crossfire.
He recounts a video shot by a drone in late August that appeared to show Russian soldiers taking away and shooting a man he says is likely to be a neighbor of his brother. Since then, he has been unable to reach his brother.
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Unless something changes, says Mr. Subotin, “it’s just a question of time” before Russia destroys all of Donetsk region, systematically turning it to rubble and claiming control of the ruins. Talk of an effective Ukrainian counteroffensive is overblown, he says.
“I am not a military expert, I just see what is going on, on the ground,” he says. His concern is that “we will lose [Donetsk] in a way that it is going to be erased from the face of the Earth.”
The Ukrainian experience here points to a Russian slash-and-burn policy. Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps released intercepted Russian drone video and radio traffic of a Russian officer giving a “plan of action” to soldiers moving house to house through a village in the northern Donetsk region. The officer told them to “gather your courage” and weapons.
“Get ready now. You’ll have to kill people indiscriminately. Everyone, without exception,” he instructs – all except for a captured girl, who was to be kept safe and away from seeing dead family members.
Such grim examples are no surprise to one couple evacuated from Kostiantynivka, an embattled town northeast of Pokrovsk that has been in Russian crosshairs for many months.
“The situation in the city is terrible, the Russians are hitting with everything. Hundreds of rockets and bombs are falling every day on residential areas. Everything is on fire,” says Valentyna Karelina, who recounts her escape with her husband, Ivan Karelin, in a classroom with 10 cots at the relief center.
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They describe how two glide bombs struck the building next to theirs, killing six people and causing the building to collapse. When they left, days ago, they believed it was their last chance to escape. Russian rockets landed around them, and drones made the one route out of town almost impassable.
They were saved by a “very young, beautiful soldier,” who kept his promise and returned for them, says Ms. Karelina.
“Drones are hunting for anything, and one glide bomb landing destroys everything,” she says. “So that combination is helping [Russians] advance on this territory.
“You need to understand what it looks like,” says Ms. Karelina. “Drones are everywhere. … The hospitals are bombed, the safety stations are bombed.”
“The Russians keep shooting civilians, without stopping,” says Mr. Subotin, who conducted an evacuation from Kostiantynivka last week. “Heaven forbid, Russia takes over Ukraine. People like me won’t have a country to live in anymore.”
Reporting for this story was supported by Oleksandr Naselenko.