Inside the Ukrainian city as Russian forces advance

While preparing to launch another rescue mission on the Eastern Front in Ukraine, 35 -year -old Anton Yarimchuk is grateful for fog. He will protect him and his colleague Pelly from Russian drones looking for the sky. His armored truck will provide more protection – but only somewhat. Each trip can be the last.

In December, shrapnel exploded from a drone attack through a clear armored vehicle used by his team, causing injuries, but there were no deaths.

“We were very lucky,” he says.

Anton’s ordinary destination these days is the industrial city of Boukrovsk, which he says is “being attacked day and night.”

Russian forces are closed – they are now less than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles).

“In the past few days, we have come, there was hell,” Anton told us. “There are still about 7,000 people there. We will try to get some people out of this nightmare.”

He has been doing it completely since Moscow invaded in February 2022.

With his country’s attack, the Ukrainian cinematographer left his life and his career in Berlin, returned home and participated in the founding of a small assistance organization, Base UA. Since then, he and his team have been able to get about 3,000 civilians from harm, and took them away from the front lines to the safest areas.

Pokrovsk used to be one of those places.

He says, “It is crazy,” while we head to Medina, “because this was the sanctuary, the safest city in the area and the largest hospital. The evacuation train was leaving from Boukerrovsk.”

If the Russian forces are taking the city and when the Ukrainian army is deprived of a major supply and transportation center.

Ukraine has already lost production from a decisive coal mine in the region – the only charcoal that results from the steel industry. Operations were suspended last month due to Russian progress.

We join Anton for a trip to Boucrovsk. He has a tourist, a separate medical group connected to his body shield movies. His high -definition white jacket carries the slogan “No one leaves behind.”

Before we start, there is a warning. “When we stop, we get out of the vehicles and do not stand near, if targeting it,” says Anton.

Whenever we get closer to more bangs we hear. The war left its mark, and drain the city of life. The streets are deserted, homes ascending. Some buildings are flattened. There is no smoke of chimneys on snow -covered snow. We pass a car parked with a white flag.

But we find Olga, who is already waiting on the side of the road, wrapped in the winter coat in purple and a firi cover. It is one of the six people in the Anton menu to evacuate this time.

She goes to close her home – moves quickly despite 71 years. Then enter the truck and do not look back.

“I have been in this house 65 years ago,” says Olga.

“It is difficult to leave everything behind. But life is no longer, it is like hell. Initially we thought we would sit on it, but now the earth is shaking.”

Her children and grandchildren have already fled the bombing. Ask if she thinks she would be able to return one day. “Who knows,” she answered, “but we hope.”

Along the way, whenever Anton discovers people on the street – and there is not much – he urges them to go. It stops the car to deliver the publications shown that the evacuation is free, and assistance, including a place to stay and ongoing payments, is available in Pavotrad to the west. But it is difficult to persuade some of them.

“I have to stay,” says an elderly woman. “My son died, and I need to be near his grave.”

“I don’t think he wants this,” says Anton.

We lead and pass a group of three of those who were collecting water. Anton screams another warning. “There will be battles in the streets, unfortunately, I promise you. I have done this from the first day. It is the same everywhere. This is the last stage,” he says.

One of the women comes forward to take a bulletin. “May God keep you safe,” I told him before she is on her way.

Anton moves quickly from the address to the address. When there is no answer in one house, it climbs over a high metal gate for investigation. Knight. He shouts. He talks to a neighbors. With no sign of the woman who was hoping for evacuation, we are walking.

I ask what he expects in 2025, and now President Trump has returned to the White House and pressed for peace talks.

He says, “I stopped looking forward.” “I think no one really knows what will happen. I personally don’t think that even if a kind of negotiation begins, they will bring a ceasefire anytime soon.”

More than this is expected to fight worse if the conversations begin, as both sides will try to obtain influence.

The last capacity of the day is Liuba, 75, her white hair comes out of a scarf. Her long life is now compressed in a few plastic bags. It looks abstract and retreats in every explosion we hear.

“It was bad,” she told me. “Bad. We have left us alone. There are no powers. People are only killed under the sky,” she says refers to the top. “There is no gas, no water, no electricity.”

Lyuba is assisted in the truck, which is now full, with five elderly elderly – their memories and concerns – and a black piece that comes out of the pet company. No one talks.

For Anton, this is a familiar picture, but it is still painful.

We traveled with him first At the summer heat in 2022, he was then evacuating civilians from another city in the front line – Lysychansk – where Russian shells fell.

Now in the third winter in Ukraine, he is still – and the other volunteers – are trying to bypass the front lines and save all those who can.

He says: “To be honest every time I see this, I disintegrate, because only these innocent people leave everything. To take people out of safety,” he says.

This comes at a cost, and it is increasing.

Since we traveled to Boucrovsk, Anton’s team was shot from a Russian drone. A 28-year-old British volunteer lost an arm and leg-rescue civilians-but is now stable in the hospital.

After the attack, the Anton Group suspended the evacuation of Boucrovsk, and from other front -lines.

The Ukrainian Police Unit is still called The White Angels in the city. They tell us that they are “trying to be very careful and careful.”

Inside the city, on the frozen lower floors and the remaining houses, the remaining population – most of them are the elderly – at the mercy of Russian bombs and artillery, where they are waiting for Boukrovsk to fall.

Additional reports from Wietske Burema, GokTay Koraltan and Volodymyr Lozhko