Ukrainian Civilians Face Grim Choice As Evacuation Is Mandated In Donetsk Region

In a late-night televised broadcast on July 30, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the hundreds of thousands of people still living in the combat zones in the eastern Donetsk region need to leave.

Maryna Havrysh (right) struggles to hold back her tears after her 84-year-old father, Viktor Mariuhkh, and her mother, Lidia, 79, are placed in an evacuation van in Kramatorsk on August 2, near the front lines of Russia's war on Ukraine. 

As the elderly couple left the home they shared for many decades to begin the journey to a nursing home in western Ukraine, their daughter burst into tears.

“I understand that this will be the last time that I ever see them,” said Havrysh, who decided to remain in Kramatorsk with her husband to continue working. “You see their age. I can’t give them the proper care.”

As Russian forces press into the region, authorities are hopeful that the mandatory evacuation order will bring out up to 220,000 people from the eastern province.

One such evacuee is Valentyna Abramanovska, 87, who is taking only a black-and-white photograph of her mother and sister taken nearly 50 years ago on the Sea of Azov, a memento of her life to carry with her as she is led by a volunteer to a van.

"God help me, God help me,"  Abramanovska repeated as she crossed herself with trembling hands. "I think I'm going crazy." She said she’d been terrified after the bombings in her village became “a nightmare” and was persuaded by her daughter to leave.

She still has childhood memories of German soldiers who occupied Ukraine during World War II. But for her, the experience of the Russian bombardment has been far worse. “They are beasts, jackals. God forgive me for what I’m saying,” she said. “How is it possible? They are killing children.”

A young mother from the eastern city of Bakhmut told Reuters that the danger posed by shelling and the prospect of a winter without heat had convinced her to evacuate.

"We already have problems with electricity and no gas, so I think families with children will be the first to leave," she said.

Oleksandra Kostyuk, 9, waves from her cabin on board the evacuation train in Pokrovsk on August 2.

Another young girl waves goodbye to her grandparents on the evacuation train while holding her dog.

While the government’s order to evacuate has convinced some in the Donetsk region to flee, others have decided to stay.

Nina Grandova’s third-floor apartment in Kramatorsk was damaged by Russian shelling in July, and her disabled husband, Yuriy, has been living in the building’s basement since the Russian invasion began on February 24. Yet she said they have no plans to leave and is willing to sign a document required by authorities declaring that those who stay take responsibility for their own lives.

“I have nowhere to go. I have to take care of my husband,” she said. “What will happen will happen.”

Pictured outside her damaged flat in Kramatorsk holding her cat, Murchik, Raya Ilyevich, 86, also believes that she has nowhere else to go.

In an ominous warning reflecting the dire situation, the Ukrainian president said that if more people leave the Donetsk region now, "the fewer people the Russian Army will have time to kill.”