In Siversk, Donetsk Oblast, almost everywhere there are destroyed houses, deep craters, and constant cannonades. You cannot find a building without damage here. Only a hospital and a few shops are open in this town.
People here have been without gas, electricity, or even water for 10 months. They live in basements because it is the only place they can heat.
The locals live almost without food, without amenities in their homes, and are actually on the verge of survival. In winter, it is especially difficult here: while broken windows can be repaired, the holes caused by Russian artillery shelling cannot.
Now there are about a hundred people left in the town of about 12,000 inhabitants. The dead are buried right in the yards of their homes because it is deadly to move far from the shelters. There are almost no people on the streets.
“Why do we have to burn the trees we grew? People here need to destroy the trees because they are the only firewood available,” says Halyna, an elderly woman with tears in her eyes.
- Bakhmut under fire: how a frontline city lives. Almost a year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, civilians continue to fight for their lives under fire in Eastern Ukraine, one of the most conflict-affected regions of the country.
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