‘We’re not leaving our homes – we’re waiting for our heroes to liberate us’
Elderly communities on edge of Donbas stand firm against the growing threat of a Russian takeover
‘It has become harder recently because the battlefield comes closer and closer’
‘I sent my children away. They have their whole lives ahead of them and I have lived mine already’
The sound of distant artillery rumbles daily through the deserted streets of the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, not far from the fierce fighting around Severodonetsk.
Many people have already fled as the war crawls ever closer, but those refusing to leave grow increasingly anxious amid the thud of shelling. “I used to have a lot of hobbies, like sewing and knitting but now in the circumstances my hands don’t want to do that. I have no inspiration,” Larissa said. She and Natalya, neighbours who struck up a friendship after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, walk daily in the city’s Jubilee Park to pick berry leaves to make tea.
“We are collecting herbs and waiting for peace,” said Larissa, who does not want to abandon her home as the Russian army closes in.
Last week they were joined by elderly residents taking strolls past a towering Ukrainian flag that fluttered in the breeze. Others cast rods into the park’s muddy pond to catch fish to make soup. Anything to distract themselves from the thought of an impending invasion.
Russian forces are bearing down on their city, slowly but steadily, as they try to seize the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk to achieve the “complete liberation” of the Donbas.
Russia now controls more than 90 per cent of the Luhansk region and almost the entire city of Severodonetsk, just 40 miles to the east of Kramatorsk
The near constant wail of an air raid siren is a cruel reminder of what may be to come. “It gets scary in the night when you hear the explosions and the sirens and the feeling of expecting something that might come here makes it really hard to endure,” said Larissa. “It has become harder recently
because the battlefield comes closer and closer to our hometown. We are not leaving. This is our home, this is our land, and we will be here waiting for our heroes to liberate us and hopefully they will not let the Russians come and invade our city.”
But the stress of the constant soundtrack of war is taking its toll.
“It’s been hard recently. The city has not been shelled much but this siren is killing me. It’s going on for hours. It’s really hard to think,” said Ludmila, an elderly woman walking in the park.
Asked why she had not left, she replied: “I sent my children away. My grandson works in Denmark. And my daughter is in Paris. They have their whole lives ahead of them and I have lived mine already. And where would I go? I don’t want to start over again.”
Only about 60,000 residents out of 215,000 remain in Kramatorsk and about 75 per cent of them are elderly, according to Oleksandr Goncharenko, the city’s mayor. If Russia overtakes Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, many fear Kramatorsk, a strategic industrial town, may be next.
“Anything is possible. The situation can change at any time. Nobody is safe anywhere,” Mr Goncharenko told The Daily Telegraph.
“The Russians do not occupy cities or villages, they occupy territories,” he said. “They do not think in any way about the infrastructure. For them it doesn’t matter what their target is because they do not think about possible future life in these cities”
Mr Goncharenko said there had been no strikes on the city since early May, but it’s an uneasy calm.
On April 8, 59 people were killed in a Russian missile strike on the railway station as they waited to evacuate.
For Mr Goncharenko, the only chance to relaunch peace talks is to stop Russian forces in their tracks, and the only possibility to do this is for the West to send long range weapons.
“Without long distance artillery it’s impossible to stop them. We shoot 20km, they shoot 40km,” he said.
Nobody could have anticipated the stresses of his job before February, but the mayor tries to stay upbeat. “Thanks for coming!” he said. “Stay alive!”