‘On our knees’: Ukrainians near frontline say they pay the price for west’s hesitancy
The Russian war plane flew above Avdiivka, the Ukrainian city abandoned this month by Ukrainian forces. It looped above the new eastern frontline. And then it dropped a bomb, not far from where Maryna Haivoronska was standing in the village of Novoselivka Persha. “I saw the jet in the sky. It was 9.30am. The bomb landed 500 metres away from me. I threw myself to the ground. My legs are still trembling,” she said.
Since capturing Avdiivka Russian forces have been moving rapidly forward. Earlier this week they overran two settlements down the road from Novoselivka, where Haivoronska is the mayor. Their tactics are brutally effective. First, fighter jets carpet-bomb the area. Then, assault groups using armoured vehicles overwhelm Ukraine’s new and vulnerable positions.
Two years after the full-scale invasion, Russia is close to achieving a strategic breakthrough in the east. It is happening in a rustic landscape of brown fields, wispy yellow feather grass and pyramid-like slag heaps. Ukrainian forces clatter up and down in green Humvees along dusty country roads. But they have no answer to Russian planes, which patrol menacingly above them in an azure haze, leaving decorative curlicue trails.
Ukrainian troops have not given up. They have shot down 10 enemy Sukhoi jets in as many days. But overall they lack tactical-level air defences, which would allow them to chase away Russia’s marauding squadrons, as they move into position above the occupied city of Donetsk. The Ukrainians have little artillery. The Russians have lots. The sound of incoming Grad missiles can be heard every few minutes along the Ukrainian frontline: a terrible thunder clap.
The heavy glide bomb that fell on Novoselivka’s School Street wrecked a private two-storey house. Miraculously the family inside – Alyona Movchan and her two children – survived. The village has been hit before. In 2023 a rocket flattened the main square, destroying everything apart from a garish Soviet war memorial with a silver-painted sculpture of a wounded soldier. Two people were killed. Another died from a heart attack.
Locals say decisions being taken far away – or not, in the case of US Republicans blocking a crucial $61bn (£48bn) package to Ukraine – are existential for them. Their homes and communities are being swallowed up. “We are on our knees, begging the US and the UK for help,” Haivoronska told the Guardian. She added: “I’m from Avdiivka. I believed the city would hold. We lost it because our guys didn’t have planes or enough ammunition.”
Some residents are reluctant to leave, despite the fact the Russians are 10km away, and getting closer. The mayor said 18 people remained. There is no electricity or gas. The village shop – Natalie’s – shut this week. Its disco, kindergarten and surgery closed long ago. In the neighbouring village of Zhelanne 454 people hang on. On Tuesday humanitarian aid was given out at its school. Moscow has bombed the building three times, ripping off its southern facade.
“I have a bag packed. But where am I supposed to go?” 63-year-old Liubov Hryhorivna wondered. She explained: “I have no money. Our pensions are small. I love my country and I don’t want to leave.” What did she think of Vladimir Putin, who has vowed to ‘liberate’ the parts of Donetsk oblastnot under Russian
rule? “He started with Donetsk in 2014. Now he wants everything. His appetite has grown. He’s our enemy,” she said. Could Ukraine win? “I don’t know,” she replied.
Hryhorivna collected a gas stove, a solar-powered torch and a grey blanket. She said she was living in a flat belonging to her husband’s late parents, after a missile hit her own property, blowing out the windows. “I would like to stay alive so I can see my grandchildren,” she said. Of the 30 people who picked up supplies, one said he supported Russia. “I believe in peace,” Anatolii Anatoliiovych said, predicting: “Russia will win.”
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, this week convened an emergency summit in support of Ukraine, alarmed by the stalemate in the US Congress, where participants agreed more had to be done. The EU, however, has failed to make good on its pledge to give Kyiv a million artillery rounds. Deliveries of weapons – tanks, air defence systems and long-range artillery – have typically come too late, and only after indecision and government caution.
Ukrainian troops, meanwhile, have hastily constructed a new fortified line designed to thwart further Russian advances. It stretches between the villages of Tonenke, Orlivka, and Berdychi. There are trenches. And a body of water. But they offer less protection than the now abandoned concrete bunkers inside Avdiivka’s industrial zone and its sprawling coke factory. These helped Ukrainian combat units withstand Russia and its proxies for a decade. Would the new defences work?
“I’m optimistic,” Mykola Kovalenko, head of the Ocheretynsk military district, which includes Novoselivka, Zhelanne, and other villages west of Avdiivka, said. He explained: “I believe in our armed forces. Look how long they held Avdiivka. The problem on our side is a lack of weapons. Without air power Russia could not have taken the city. Their planes are terrible for us.” He stressed: “Our soldiers are heroes. To stop Russia and its power is not easy.”
Evidence for this could be seen nearby. A Russian aircraft bomb – weighing 500kg and known as a FAB – had demolished a shop and a whitepainted house. Fires still smouldered. The ground was warm underfoot. The explosion transformed an orchard into a wasteland of blackened stumps. A tea service lay surreally amid the debris. Its cups were fused and carbonised. The blast ripped off roof tiles, exposing a skeleton of wooden beams.
At 6.30am on Wednesday Russia carried out another airstrike. A 62year-old woman who had been walking down the street was hurt. Most of the houses in the centre of Zhelanne