A concern shared across the Donbas region remains even with Ukrainian forces controlling parts of the territory. From towns like Horlivka and Pokrovsk, located only a few kilometers behind the front line after the recent fall of Avdiivka, to large cities such as Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, tens of thousands of residents live within sight of the contested area. Civilians interviewed in recent days express deep unease about the possibility that, given ammunition shortages and heavier weaponry, Ukraine’s defense lines might fail to hold against a Kremlin advance. This anxiety marks a noticeable shift from last year when, on the first anniversary of Russia’s offensive, many residents believed the invaders would not extend control over more territory in the region.
“We feel it much closer now”, explains Lena, a 40-year-old woman who declines to give her last name and works as a shop assistant in Horlivka, about fifteen kilometers from Avdiivka, the industrial suburb of Donetsk from which Ukrainian forces recently withdrew. At night, bombardments are constant and even disrupt sleep. A year ago she lived with a sense of normalcy, certain that the aggressors would not reach her home. Now she says, “we can only hope they don’t get here, but we cannot rule it out.” She is married with two daughters. If a forced evacuation were to become necessary, she admits there would be a struggle to secure funds. “All we want is to live in peace; provide us with weapons, and we will fight to push the Russians back,” she notes in Tolstoyan Russian, with little Ukrainian accent, adding that her age and education give her a stronger command of the attacker’s language than her own country’s.
Kristina, a 20-year-old who recently left a supermarket where cork boards cover the storefront windows to limit blast effects, speaks with bitterness about a recent Russian offensive that she estimates has displaced about 60 percent of Pokrovsk’s roughly 60,000 residents. “Early in the war, many fled, but they returned as fighting stabilized the front; now the city is thinning out again,” she says, clearly unsettled. She describes the situation as “very worrying” and does not hide doubts about whether the occupiers might reach the neighborhoods where people live today.
Major Cities
In Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, cities distanced from the front lines and previously sheltered from the heaviest fighting, residents note a rising frequency of bombardments that strike civilian targets. Veterans of Ukraine’s conflict recall similar patterns from the months leading up to the early intensification around the Battle of Bakhmut, when airstrikes and shelling against these urban areas were nearly constant. Olena Malyr, the director of secondary school No. 18 in Sloviansk, cannot hide her indignation as she surveys the cratered shell of a building damaged in a recent overnight attack, which killed Volodymyr, a 65-year-old security guard. “The body has been found, though pulling him from the rubble remains a challenge in the freezing cold,” she explains, describing the stark aftermath of the strike.
Olena, living near the school, heard a powerful blast around 8 p.m. and learned that her institution had been struck. The cafeteria and a humanitarian aid distribution point survived the explosion, though many areas of the building remain unsafe. Teachers and staff, wary of reporting to international media, continue to share food boxes with local families most in need. They hope the attackers do not reach this neighborhood, but they cannot guarantee that the danger will not materialize, a development that would undermine Ukraine’s ability to emerge from the conflict with Russia.