KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — In one of the last remaining cities under Ukrainian control in the country's eastern Donetsk region, once a powerhouse of industry, life gets more difficult — and dangerous — as Russian forces inch closer.
Over the last month, local officials in Kramatorsk have reported dozens of Russian attacks on the city using strike drones, ballistic missiles, rockets and aerial bombs. Homes, gas stations and markets have all been hit, as has a nearby power plant, causing blackouts.
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"There was a recent strike on the house next to mine," said Olena Frolova, 20, who works in a shop that sells Donetsk-branded clothing in Kramatorsk. "We all feel that the front is getting closer. Your life depends on how our guys at the front hold on."
Russian President Vladimir Putin is doubling down on seizing all of eastern Ukraine's Donbas, which includes the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia has invaded and occupied more than 80% of Donbas since 2014. The Kremlin wants to take the remaining land either by military force or as part of a deal to end a full-scale war it has waged on Ukraine for nearly four years. Ukraine has so far refused to agree to any deal that gives up its territory to Russia. The Trump administration is pushing a plan that faces Ukrainian and European resistance over the issues of territory and security guarantees.
Moscow says its troops have the momentum on the battlefield. The Russian military has also created its own force specializing in drone warfare, an area in which Ukraine has led.
The fight for a key eastern city
Last week, Russia claimed its forces captured Pokrovsk, a small city in Donetsk that has served as a key supply route for Ukrainian troops. Ukraine's military says this isn't true.
Writing on social media, the 7th Rapid Reaction Corps of the Air Assault Forces said on Dec. 1 that Russian troops were still mired in urban warfare inside the city.
The better-resourced Russian army has taken 18 months to infiltrate Pokrovsk, where Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych wrote early drafts of "Shchedryk," a song that became the basis for the popular Christmas song "Carol of the Bells."
NPR spoke to soldiers last month from several brigades defending Pokrovsk. At the request of the Ukrainian military, which cites security reasons, NPR is identifying them by first name or their military call signs.
"It won't be possible to hold on for long," said a drone pilot from the 68th Jaeger Brigade, who uses the call sign Goose, after Anthony Edwards' character in Top Gun. "I would like to be optimistic, but that's the reality."
A sky of colliding drones
Goose and other soldiers painted a grim picture of Pokrovsk — a ruined city, heavy with the stench of smoke and corpses, most of them Russian, the soldiers said. Maksym, who is with the 14th brigade, said Ukrainian soldiers are vastly outnumbered and that the sky above is filled with drones.
"There are so many of them that they can't even pass each other — they just collide," Maksym said.
The soldiers said Russia is using Rubicon, an elite drone unit, in the Pokrovsk area. Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment who focuses on defense analysis, said Russia has been deploying more drone teams like Rubicon and also increasing production of drone systems.
"Ukraine's advantage in drone employment has been substantially reduced over the course of the year," Kofman said.
Volodymyr, a spokesperson for the 7th Rapid Reaction Corps, said his unit also uses ground drones, also known as unmanned ground vehicles, but that Russian aerial drones are taking them out. "We are suffering a lot of losses," he said of the remote-controlled vehicles.
Kofman said Ukraine's political leadership believes losing Pokrovsk could affect its leverage in talks to end the war.
"It depends on the mercurial sentiments of one person in the White House," he said.
"We don't want to leave"
About 52 miles north, in Kramatorsk, residents are feeling the pressure.
Early last month, Ukrainian Railways suspended service to Kramatorsk and neighboring Slovyansk, the other remaining fortress city in Donetsk. The line was known colloquially as the Train of Love because it often carried the partners of soldiers traveling to those two cities to meet their loved ones on break from the front line.
Kramatorsk's markets are repeatedly hit, including the one where 72-year-old Vera Tsarova sells the butternut squash she grows in her garden. A day after one of those strikes, she has returned, setting up her stall near a woman who sells camouflage fatigues for soldiers and glittery jewelry for their visiting wives.
"We don't want to leave, to abandon our home, what we built and earned," Tsarova told NPR. "The Russians must be pushed back into their country."
One shopper — a woman with short white curls — interrupted her. "You are giving an interview, and then there will be another strike here!" she shouted at Tsarova, suggesting that media attention prompts Russian forces to attack sites in Kramatorsk.
"They are already watching us," Tsarova responded, referring to the Russian reconnaissance drones flying in the area. "They see us, and they will keep striking us."
"That's right," said another shopper, 70-year-old Olha Kasinkovka, a retired trolleybus administrator. "They want to scare us into leaving." She said she has already been displaced twice because of the Russian invasion.
Russia-backed separatists serving as proxies for Moscow took over her hometown of Makiivka in 2014. She then fled to Kostiantynivka, another city in the Donetsk region that, until recently, was relatively safe. In the last few months, Russia has pounded Kostiantynivka into ruins. Ukrainian soldiers say it's now so dangerous there that only unmanned ground vehicles are on the battered streets.
"I'm not among the faint of heart. I stayed until the very end," Kasinkovka said. "Now I am homeless. A homeless person at 70 years old."
She is now sheltering in Kramatorsk and is feeling the threat of Russia encroaching again. She said she has lived through Russia's repeated violations of peace deals in the past and does not trust the Russians to honor the terms of any deal.
Forcing Ukraine to give up territory, she said, won't end the war."No way," she said. "Russia will attack again."
Polina Lytvynova contributed reporting from Kramatorsk and Iryna Matviyishyn from Kyiv, Ukraine.
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