People Flee Donbas Strongholds as Russian Advance Tightens Pressure

Nadiya Trofimchuk, 79, had lived her entire life in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk and had never considered leaving, even as the war approached just a short distance away. Yet one morning she found herself in an improvised evacuation center, sitting beside a folding table with water and tea, yet neither touching them, entirely focused on the prospect of leaving.

“We had a strike,” she explained, her eyebrows raised over purple and gold cat‑eye glasses. “A very, very, very big strike.”

In the April attack, Russia dropped a 3,000‑pound bomb right in the middle of the city, destroying almost an entire block. It sent a grim signal to Sloviansk and the rest of the Donetsk region, the Kremlin’s most prized objective. Ukrainian forces have spent years fortifying and defending this strategically vital territory at immense cost, and now they are under an onslaught that residents fear may signal the beginning of the end.

Russia still holds numerical and firepower advantages. After years of grinding conflict, its forces have focused on the “fortress belt” cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka, which comprise roughly 20 percent of Donetsk still controlled by Ukraine.

Russian troops have penetrated Kostiantynivka; Druzhkivka has turned into a wasteland. That leaves Sloviansk and Kramatorsk as the last real strongholds in Donetsk for Ukraine.

While the two cities are not in immediate danger of falling, Moscow’s forces have moved close enough to launch increasingly frequent glide bombs and exploding drones. Thousands of civilians have fled as life has become untenable.

The deployment of the 3,000‑pound bomb in Sloviansk has raised concerns that Russia may employ even harsher tactics. Moscow has used such weapons to level and clear other Ukrainian cities, leaving soldiers to fight among smoking rubble.

Ukraine has resisted pressure from the former U.S. administration to hand over the Donbas region, which includes Donetsk, in peace talks. Kyiv insists it will continue to fight for the area, although it may have little left of its main cities to defend.

Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk—all of these cities suffered that fate, and their memories loom for those now evacuating from Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and nearby villages.

Lena, 71, who had been awaiting evacuation further west, said her hometown of Mykolaivka was already ablaze, “erased from life” by explosions.

“Everything is destroyed, and it’s not even over yet,” she said hoarsely, patting her chest as if to calm a racing heart. She declined to give her last name.

For years, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk have hung on as Russian forces inch closer. The cities are safeguarded by fortifications that Ukraine built after Russia first began to stir conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

In December, when Russian forces seized the town of Siversk, which sits on high ground, the links of the fortress belt began to crack.

Russian troops gradually advanced to Lyman and Kostiantynivka, approaching Sloviansk closely enough to launch regular drone attacks, prompting a growing exodus of civilians.

By April, about 1,000 people were leaving the city each week, according to local officials. The city’s population has fallen to less than 44,000 from roughly 50,000 in March.

Senior Lt. Vadym Kostrytskyi, a commander in Ukraine’s 30th Mechanized Brigade, said Russian forces were trying to get as close as possible to cut off logistics routes and choke Kramatorsk and Sloviansk into submission.

He said, “Kramatorsk is fading away” before his eyes, emptying more with each strike as Russia shifts toward “destroying populated areas” in both cities.

Vladyslav Arseniy helps with the evacuations. When attacks intensified about six months ago, he said, East SOS, the humanitarian organization he works for, allowed him to keep a drone detector in his van.

He no longer goes to Druzhkivka because it is too dangerous. Most of his work now centers on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, but “there will come a point where we will not be able to go,” he said over coffee before his next pickup.

Near the site sat the charred wreckage of a Ukrainian military vehicle, hit by a drone that morning. Firefighters sprayed the pavement as teams repaired damaged anti‑drone netting above it.

The netting, intended to catch Russian drones before they reach their targets and explode, has spread across eastern and southern Ukraine, covering roads in and out of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and some city streets.

Each week, Sloviansk’s main hospital treats 10 to 15 civilians with drone‑related injuries, according to its director, Volodymyr Ivanenko.

He said he and his colleagues were preparing for a time when it would become too dangerous to move around the city. The maternity ward closed after sustaining damage in a strike in June. Plans are underway to convert the main hospital building into a hub if other satellite buildings must close.

For now, evacuations are mostly voluntary and sometimes carried out against a backdrop of explosions.

Yuri Tarasov, 75, slumped in a chair in the evacuation center one morning. The previous night, a Russian strike had destroyed his home in Mykolaivka.

“There are no houses, none intact,” he kept repeating, resting an arm on a bag containing whatever he had managed to grab—a tablet, undershirts, underwear, a pillbox and a small angle grinder.

“I didn’t have time to change my shoes,” he said, weeping. He couldn’t bring his dog Palma or two cats.

Glide bombs were in flight as he hobbled on a crutch to a shelter, filing into a blue plastic chair and staring into space.

Three days later, a few miles down the road in Kramatorsk, Pavlo Dyachenko, a regional police official, was having a busy morning. Glide bombs had hit the city at about 5 a.m., waking him. He immediately drove to the scene. Another wave of booms came at about 11 a.m. After a quick coffee, he had to record the impact. Two people were trapped under rubble, presumed dead.

Mr. Dyachenko had arrived in Kramatorsk via some of the war’s worst battles, evacuating civilians from Bakhmut, Toretsk, Pokrovsk, Siversk and Avdiivka. He has seen how a city can go to ruin.

Photos on his phone cataloged how life had become more dangerous in Kramatorsk, showing destroyed buildings, ruined homes and a severed foot in a car trunk.

“Stores are closing. People are evacuating and leaving,” Mr. Dyachenko said, adding, “Living here is frightening.”

The park was empty that sunny afternoon. Most streets were deserted except for teams repairing netting alongside men with anti‑drone guns keeping an eye on the sky.

Not long after, a third wave of bombs struck central Kramatorsk.

That was the day Maryna, 35, finally left the city.

A man had been blown apart in front of her. The market kept getting hit, as did buildings next to hers, she said in a monotone, barely blinking. She had to leave but wished her mother had come with her.

They had fled Kramatorsk once in 2022, returned in 2024, and “everyone hoped that everything would get better,” she said, refusing to give a last name. “But it keeps getting worse, worse and worse.”

The closer the front line approaches, the more people like Maryna are being moved west to a displaced‑person hub in Lozova.

On that day, a large yellow bus pulled up, taking 31 evacuees. Fifteen minutes later, a van arrived with 16 more, followed by another bus with another 30.

Angelina, 4, had just arrived from Kramatorsk with her family. She was shy when asked about her red sequined backpack but lit up when she showed off her stuffed woolly mammoth, Motya.

“My Motya is beautiful,” she said. As her mother finished registration paperwork, Angelina held Motya out for a pet.

“We are leaving for a new home,” she beamed, waving goodbye.

Olha Kotiuzhanska and Denys Denysov contributed reporting.

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