As the Russian forces develop, Donbas’s Ukrainians must stay or go.

The White Armored Police Van is speeding up the Bilozerske, a steal cage, which is equipped with a stil cage to protect from Russian drones.

They have already lost a single hit van in front of the drone. The confinement and powerful rooftop drone jamming equipment provide additional protection. But it’s still dangerous here. The police, known as a white angel, want to spend little time in Bilozerske as much as possible.

The small and beautiful mining city of only 9 miles (14 km) at the forefront is slowly destroyed by the Russian summer offensive. Local hospitals and banks have been closed for a long time. The dressed wall of the village plaza was shattered by a drone attack, and the trees were broken and split along the road. The neat line of the cotage with the roof of the cardboard and the well -organized garden flows through the car window. Some are not touched, and some are burned on fire.

The approximate estimation estimates that 700 residents remain in Bilozerske from 16,000 people before the war. But there are few evidence of them, the city seems to have already been abandoned.

218,000 people should evacuate in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, including 16,500 children. The area, which is decisive in defense, is doing a rude work of Russia’s invasion, including drones and missiles’ daily attacks. Some can’t leave and some other do not want. Authorities will help to evacuate people in the front line, but if they are not in danger, they will not be able to return home again. And as the threat of Russian drones grows, there are people who get opportunities rather than leaving home.

The police are looking for a woman’s house who wants to leave. Their vans cannot go down one of the roads. So the police officers were searched, and the drone jammer’s winding sound and the lane descended the invisible protection.

Eventually he finds a woman under the eaves of the cottage, and reads “People live here.” She has dozens of bags and two dogs. Too many to carry the police. They already had a sheet and their belongings were squeaky in the white van.

The woman faces the choice -leaves or stays. She decides to wait. There will soon be another evacuation team, and they will take her belongings.

To stay or go is the calculation of life or death. According to the latest numbers of the United Nations, Ukraine’s civilian casualties reached the highest level in July of this year, and 1,674 people were killed or injured. Most occur in the front line. In the same month, the largest number of short -range drones has been killed and injured since the beginning of the full -scale invasion, the United Nations said.

The nature of the threat to civilians in war has changed. Once artillery and rocket strike were the main threats, they were now pursued by the Russian first -person first -person inquiry (FPV) drone.

When the police leave the village, an old man who is pushing a bicycle appears. He is the only soul that can be seen on the street that day.

According to the United Nations, most of the people remaining in the front line village are the elderly and form an unbalanced civilian casualty.

He tells me to move to the side from the road that does not exist. VolodyMyr Romanik is 73 years old and risks his life for two dishes he collected from the back of the bike. His daughter -in -law’s house was destroyed by Russian attacks, so today he came to save the pot.

Are he afraid of drones? “What will be. At the age of 73, I’m no longer afraid. I already lived my life.”

He does not rush to get off the street. As a former football referee, he slowly removes the folded card from the jacket pocket and shows his official football referee card. April 1986 -moon of Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

He came from the west of Ukraine and could not harm there. “I stayed here for my wife,” he said. She had several surgery and could not travel. And with him, when he moves along the empty distance, two metal pots on the back of the bike head home to care for their wife.

Slovyansk returns more than 25 km from the front and faces another drone threat. Shahed Drones were called “Flying Mopeds” by the Ukrainians because of the putter engine. Their flock often attacks Slovien Screed. The winding sound of the drone dives and changes before it explodes.

At night, NADIIA and Oleh Moroz were heard, but they will still not leave Slovien. They bleed and sweated in this land. I shed tears from my son’s grave.

Serhii was 29 years old, the middle of the army, who was killed by a cluster bomb near SVATOVE in November 2022. He and his father, Oleh, fought for the first time in 2015 with Donbas Russians. They worked side by side with SAPPERS.

Serhii’s trident -shaped grave sits on the hill overlooking Slovyansk.

53 -year -old NADIIA is often visited. In the afternoon I meet her. Russian artillery lands on a nearby hill. But she is rarely paid attention as she raises a turmoil around the grave and whispers sweet words to her dead son.

“Where can I lose the place where I was born, where I grew up, and where I found the last rest?” She speaks to me through tears. “And you live your life with the feeling that you will never visit this place. I still can’t even imagine it.”

But her husband, Oleh (55), admits that he will have to leave when the fight gets closer. “I won’t be here. The Russians will immediately achieve my goals,” he said. Until then, they could stay in the night fear of the drone and be close to their son’s last rest.

When the war arrives, the challenge of life does not stop. Everything that OLHA ZAIITS wants is time to recover from cancer surgery. Instead, the 53 -year -old husband Oleksander Ponyomarenko, 59, had to run away from Oleksandrivka. The Russians were 7.5 km away and the bombardment became intense. Their post office died of a Russian bombing and the school principal died.

“There was a strike -the missile touched the house around me, and the explosion broke our roof tiles, blown the door, windows, doors, and fences, and we just left and hit two days later.

Now they are temporarily living in a borrowed house in Sviatohirsk. Not very good. We can listen to the outside, and the edge of the front line can get closer every day. But you will have to do it. They have no place to go.

“Yes. We must be far from somewhere, but we do not know how or where we are. Their life savings went to her hospital bill and now there is no choice.

On Tuesdays they left the village to collect OLHA’s test results. The news was good and there is no need to receive chemotherapy. “We were happy, and we felt like we were riding our wings,” she said.

But while they disappeared, Russia bombed nearby Yarova 4 km away. It was just before 11 am and the elderly left home to collect pensions. So far, 14 of the most deadly strikes for civilians have been killed and 19 were injured.

Telegram, head of the Donetsk administration in Vadym Filashkin, blocked the attack. “This is not a war -this is a pure terror.”

“I urge everyone,” he said.

Additional Report from Liubov Sholudko