The Donetsk region, long coveted by Moscow, is emptying out again. Vladimir Putin is said to want full control of the eastern Ukrainian province in exchange for freezing the war. Russia already holds about 70 percent of Donetsk and nearly all of neighboring Luhansk, advancing yard by yard.
In Dobropillia, just five miles from Russian lines, the front feels perilously close. I travel there with two humanitarian volunteers, part of a small mission to move the sick, elderly, and children to safer ground. Their armored vehicle hums at 80 miles an hour, its rooftop bristling with drone jammers. Tall green netting shields the road from Russian eyes above.
It is their second trip of the morning. The town is nearly deserted, emptied by weeks of shelling. Those who remain dash outside only to fetch food or water — the latter absent for a week now. Every block bears scars of bombardment: shattered windows, blackened walls, hollowed-out ruins.
The volunteers, 31-year-old Laarz from Germany and 19-year-old Varia from Ukraine, have already ferried dozens of people out in the past five days. Both work with Universal Aid Ukraine, a small charity accustomed to operating on the edges of the front.
Last week, Russian troops breached local defenses, threatening Ukraine’s so-called “fortress belt” — a heavily fortified stretch seen as vital to holding Donetsk. Kyiv rushed reinforcements, insisting the line is stable again. But residents no longer believe safety is possible.
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On a stoop, 56-year-old Vitalii Kalinichenko waits with a plastic bag of belongings. His apartment’s windows are gone, blown out by a Shahed drone that also tore into his leg. He points toward a crater by a patch of roses. The engine from another drone rests in a neighbor’s garden.
“I’m the only one left,” he says quietly, his bandaged leg exposed beneath black shorts.
Before the team can drive him out, a handheld detector chirps: Russian drones in the sky. The group scatters under trees, waiting for the buzzing machines to pass.
For now, the evacuations continue. But Dobropillia feels like a place slipping away, one family at a time.
