Anzhelika Sharonova and her 86-year-old mother held out in their battered eastern Ukrainian town for as long as they could before finally fleeing this week with only a few bags between them.
Russian forces are advancing steadily north and south of Toretsk as they press on multiple parts of the eastern front, threatening to eventually envelop the former coal mining town and others around it.
“There's not a single window left on the fifth floor,” said Sharonova, 57, huddled inside a minivan driven by members of East SOS, an aid group that helps evacuate civilians.
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“The bombs fall near our building.”
Toretsk has been on the front lines of the war against Moscow-backed separatists since 2014, but the recent surge in fighting and a lack of basic services have made life virtually unbearable for Sharonova and her mother Valentyna, the two women said.
They had relied mainly on humanitarian aid deliveries to the empty city, where few shops remained open and the nearest hospital was at least 20 kilometers away.
Oleksandr and Vladyslav, volunteers from the non-governmental organization EastSOS, help 88-year-old local resident Valentyna Sharonova and her 57-year-old daughter Anzhelika during their evacuation from the city of Toretsk amid the Russian attack on Ukraine, near a front line in the Donetsk region, on May 8, 2024. (Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko)
The buildings on his street were pockmarked and metal cables lay stretched out near the entrance. Elsewhere, dogs roamed the streets under the roar of artillery and a long line of residents emerged from an ATM.
In a nearby town, Valentyna said, there was “a missile (attack) on every house.” A day before the two were evacuated, a Russian airstrike hit a local police station, authorities said.
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Fewer than 12,000 people remain in the greater Toretsk area, out of a population of at least 66,000 before the invasion, regional police said.
“Every day it is more dangerous for people to stay in their homes,” said Vladyslav Arseniy, a first responder with SOS Oriental.
Sharonova and her mother are among two dozen people evacuated each week by East SOS, which tours the war-scarred Donetsk region almost daily in response to calls.
Reuters accompanied the group on a recent mission as it picked up elderly and sick residents from their homes and local hospitals, mainly from towns like Kostiantynivka, which are further from the front line.
Two bedridden women were lying in the back of the minivan and the others in the back seat.
Those remaining in Toretsk, where fields outside the city are marked by fresh and decade-old trenches, are determined to stay until their homes are completely destroyed, Arseniy said.
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Sharonova and her mother, who had endured two winters of war in their apartment, said they were headed to a larger city in central Ukraine and did not expect to return.
East SOS member Oleksandr Stasenko, speaking outside the train on which he helped load the several residents the team evacuated that day, said it was difficult to see people scared.
“Sometimes emotions break through and you cry,” he said. “But you recover and help people.”
