In the spring and summertime of 2024, Russian troops continued their creeping offensive in certain parts of the front line in Ukraine. utilizing crucial manpower and ammunition, Russian troops are utilizing the alleged maneuver of “squeezing out” Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk region. As a consequence of the usage of a immense amount of ammunition, the settlements that have been the mark of direct attacks by the Russians are being destroyed very quickly. First, all public institutions are evacuated and no public transport is available anymore. After that, the power disappears and any mobile signal becomes unstable. And if the Russians manage to capture at least part of the territory of a settlement, a no man’s land – the territory between the Ukrainian and Russian-controlled parts of the town – begins to appear. On top of all the dangers of the war zone, civilians besides face the dangers of forced disappearance by the Russian army.
We learnt about the surviving conditions faced by civilians in towns that have been targeted by Russian attacks by talking to witnesses from the town of Krasnohorivka in Donetsk Oblast. For respective months in the spring and summertime of 2024, we talked to representatives of the White Angels police unit, who evacuate civilians from settlements on the front line. We besides talked with civilians evacuated from Krasnohorivka, and followed messages on the social network Telegram, where residents and their relatives exchange information and search help.
According to Ukrainian police, as of April this year, erstwhile the Russians gained a foothold in 1 of Krasnohorivka’s districts, about 5 100 residents remained in the town out of the respective 1000 who lived there before the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. As of the end of July this year, erstwhile most of the town was occupied by the Russians, there may have been around 200 people left in Krasnohorivka.
The “lost” Russians
Until the last moment, the Ukrainian police maintained contact with any residents of Krasnohorivka who remained in the town. During the conflict for Krasnohorivka, the police actively disseminated information about contact numbers that could be called to request assistance in order to be evacuated from the town.
The locals called to request evacuation assistance for themselves and besides study the deaths and injuries of their neighbours. In late April, police officers were informed about a bloody Russian-made bulletproof vest and a Russian first aid kit found in an area not yet occupied by Russian troops. This indicated that a wounded Russian soldier was hiding somewhere among the abandoned houses in the Krasnohorivka area and possibly had been helped by individual among the local residents.
Earlier in April 2024, during 1 of the evacuation trips to the town, police officers saw and detained a suspicious looking man who turned out to be a Russian soldier who had left his unit and was surviving in the home of a local resident in the territory inactive controlled by Ukrainian forces.
Over time, the information available to local residents about the situation there in Krasnohorivka became more limited. They simply did not hazard going outside their yards and frequently spent most of their time in their vegetable cellars, escaping the massive shelling of the area.
Valentyna, who was evacuated from the town in late May, says that Ukrainian troops were stationed on her street and a mortar was stationed close her home for any time, which made her afraid of being shot at by Russians who would mark the Ukrainian soldiers. A grey zone, an area not controlled by either the Ukrainian or Russian troops, has besides emerged in the town. Halyna, who was evacuated from Krasnohorivka in mid-July, says that in the weeks before she left the town, she saw neither Ukrainian nor Russian soldiers, but she knows that her home was in the centre of the action. “Every evening we could hear individual walking past our house, through our yard, the sound of the steps on the rubble,” she says. “My boy and I never dared to look out of the home and find out who these people were.” By that time most of the houses on Halyna’s street were either destroyed or damaged and she and her boy did not have any direct neighbours.
Destroyed home in Krasnohorivka. Photo: Kateryna Pryshchepa
Hesitant to leave for besides long
According to various accounts, any local residents had pro-Russian views and hoped for the arrival of the Russian army. Therefore, they stayed in the town despite the danger of dying from indiscriminate Russian shelling. Others, however, simply did not want to leave their homes or did not want to evacuate as they would gotta leave their animals behind.
The longer the people waited though the more hard their escape became. Until mid-May the police rescue squad inactive managed to enter the town in their van, picking up the people stranded there from their homes wherever possible. This gave them a chance to take any of their belongings with them. Having been the mark of Russian direct shelling and a kidnapping attempt, the police yet had to change their tactics, setting up pick-up points that the Krasnohorivka residents wishing to escape the town would now gotta scope on their own.
Valentyna, who evacuated Krasnohorivka in late May, had to walk with her companions to the evacuation point for about an hr and a half. On the way, the female says, they came under artillery fire and were afraid that they would not scope the assembly point alive. Halyna, who left the town in July, had been walking to the assembly point for about 4 hours. She and her companions tried to find the safest way through the town. On the way, they saw the bodies of dead civilians from Krasnohorivka and Ukrainian soldiers, who could not be evacuated due to their proximity to Russian positions.
With the Russian advancements in Krasnohorivka, the evacuation assembly points had to be moved distant from the outskirts of the town and into the fields outside it.
Olena, who was evacuated from Krasnohorivka at the end of July, had to walk 12 kilometres under shelling across the town and through the field to scope the point where the police evacuation squad was able to meet them in their van. Olena says she did not believe that they would make it. It was not only the walking under the shelling that was hard but besides uncovering the evacuation point in the field. They had to walk through paths in the fields alternatively of on the asphalted road.
Disappearances of people
Those who stay behind are at grave hazard of injury or death. Kranohorivka’s Telegram groups are now full of messages about residents of the town who have not been in contact with their relatives for any weeks. Among them are messages about respective men who disappeared after being taken from their homes by the Russian military from the same street in Krasnohorivka which had been held by the Ukrainian army till the very last days in July.
According to the Ukrainian police, in Krasnohorivka, as in another occupied settlements of Ukraine, the Russians set up a filtration camp. It was there that the missing men could have been taken. Local residents who are recognized by the Russians as loyal are being taken from Krasnohorivka to Donetsk, while the destiny of others is inactive unknown. The telephone of 1 of these missing men had been silent for respective weeks, after which his profile on messenger apps and the social network Telegram became active for respective hours. erstwhile the relatives called the number of the brother and son, it was not him who answered the phone, but a alien who spoke mediocre Russian and said that he was in Donetsk and had found the telephone in a field. erstwhile the women tried to ask him more questions, the man abruptly said they could come to Krasnohorivka and choice up the telephone themselves. The man later signed off from the social networks.
The disappearances in Krasnohorivka occurred even before it was completely captured by the Russians.
At least 1 of these disappearances in May this year was the consequence of a raid by a Russian military group. According to the police, Russians abducted the husband of a local activist who had previously coordinated the distribution of humanitarian aid on her street. The female had already left by that time, but the man remained in the town. His disappearance is likely to be related to his wife’s activities.
Among the civilians who disappeared in the town was the twenty-year-old boy of Iryna, who was evacuated from Krasnohorivka with her husband in June this year after they were both injured by artillery fire. At the time of the evacuation, Iryna and her husband had not known for respective weeks about the destiny of their son, who disappeared in late May this year. Iryna says that 1 day her boy got on his bike to meet a friend who lived in a home on the border of the alleged no man’s land in Krasnohorivka, the area between the streets occupied by the Russians and those controlled by the Ukrainian army. He did not return that day and there was no more news from him. An acquaintance of Iryna’s boy claimed that the boy had not reached him. A fewer days after he disappeared, Iryna saw a photograph of a bicycle very akin to the 1 belonging to her boy in 1 of the groups of Krasnohorivka residents on Telegram. The bike, according to the announcement in Telegram, was found abandoned somewhere in a green area on the outskirts of Krasnohorivka. Iryna’s search for information about her boy brought no results.
Damaged houses in Krasnohorivka. Photo: Kateryna Pryshchepa
White Angels in the crosshairs
According to police officers from the White Angels squad, they besides could have been targeted by a Russian sabotage group. Vasyl Pipa, 1 of the team’s members, recounts an incidental that the police believe could have resulted in their kidnapping in the territory of the town. This incident, which occurred in early May this year, was 1 of the reasons why the squad refused to travel to the town in late spring and began to negociate with local residents about an evacuation point on the outskirts of the town. According to Pipa, the squad was expected to choice up civilians in the part of the town inactive controlled by the Ukrainian military. As the squad was on its way from Kurakhove, where the unit is based, to Krasnohorivka, the unit leader received a call from a man who introduced himself as a resident of a home close where the squad was going and asked to be evacuated as well. The man who called the White Angels was calling from the number of a local resident known to the police. He utilized the man’s first and last name but it was clearly not him. He spoke Ukrainian with a pronunciation uncharacteristic of Donbas and utilized words from western Ukrainian dialects.
On that day, the police cancelled the evacuation journey and besides tightened their safety protocol erstwhile working in the Krasnohorivka area. To this day, it is not known whether the man who called the White Angels number was a Russian agent or a Ukrainian prisoner of war who spoke on the telephone under duress.
Killing of civilians
At least any of the disappearances can be attributed to the direct killings of civilians. In May this year, the White Angels evacuated a local resident of Krasnohorivka who was wounded by gunfire erstwhile he went outside his yard. As the injury occurred very close to the territory already occupied by the Russians, the police had to enlist the aid of local residents who might have had contacts with the Russians but wanted to aid their neighbour, who would not have survived without medical assistance. At the request of the police, they moved the wounded man closer to the outskirts of the town, where Ukrainian police could inactive scope him, and thus managed to bring him to the hospital.
Serhii, who remained in the town until the end of May 2024, besides fell victim to the deliberate Russian targeting of civilians with firearms. Although he had wanted to evacuate from Krasnohorivka earlier, Serhii was kept there by his parents, who were reluctant to leave their home.
Eventually, 1 day in May, Serhii’s parents decided to leave the town, and the man went in search of a wheelchair or a cart so he could take his mother, who could not walk well, to the civilian evacuation point. But Serhii failed to find a wheelchair that day. At any point, as he was walking down the street, he heard shots behind him and at least 1 bullet flew past him. He tried to dodge the next ones coming at him, but 1 of them hit him in the back. Fortunately, the bullet did not seriously injure his lungs. Serhii managed to hide from the gunfire by moving into 1 of the yards. He said that he continued to decision between the yards of private houses without going out into the open. In 1 of the abandoned houses, he found any sheets, which he utilized to make a bandage for himself. At any point, he reached a home on the outskirts of Krasnohorivka inactive occupied by 2 women. The women were able to call the police in Kurakhove, and Serhii was evacuated to the Kurakhove hospital. On the day I spoke to Serhii, he did not know anything about the destiny of his parents. He was afraid that they would not have been able to last for long without drinking water and with a dead power bank that he charged utilizing tiny solar panels.
There have besides been many cases of civilian deaths from shelling in the town. Natalia, who managed to leave the town at the end of July, says that she witnessed at least 1 case in which people have been killed by rubble after an artillery shell hit their house. On a Telegram group of Krasnohorivka residents, 1 can besides see messages in consequence to requests from people looking for their relatives who have died from shelling and have been buried by their neighbours close their place of death.
Much of what is now known about the Russian offensive on Krasnohorivka repeats the information that shocked the planet erstwhile it came to the Russian capture of Mariupol. The indiscriminate demolition of infrastructure, disregard for the safety of civilians, targeted shooting at civilians and even filtration camps. It is crucial to remember that despite the decrease in the number of reports on the situation faced by civilians on the front line, their destiny remains the same as that of the residents of Mariupol.
Kateryna Pryshchepa is simply a Ukrainian writer and a contributing editor with New east Europe.
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