In a city torn apart by conflict, a community clings to hope amid devastation. As volunteers deliver meals to the vulnerable, residents express their fears and dreams for peace. Will they...
1Awaiting the Ceasefire
Oksana, a slender blonde wearing glasses, is packing food trays into her bag that were just delivered by volunteers from World Central Kitchen. Inside are still-hot buckwheat with sausage and Olivier salad. In a box, there are mandarins. Here, in the social services center, social workers hustle about, remaining in the city to visit their clients. They share the meals that will soon be distributed across Pokrovsk.
When the front line was farther from the city, the territorial center of the city council served 330 pensioners and people with disabilities, over a hundred of whom were mobility-impaired. Now, as people leave every day, the data must be constantly updated, and due to the lack of communication, this has become more challenging.
“As long as there is at least one recipient of social services here, we must be here,” says the center's director, Varvara Kopilova.
2Inside the center, she walks around in a jacket and hat. The city has no heating, so this is a common sight. Varvara was born and raised in Pokrovsk. It pains her to see schools, kindergartens, and the institute being destroyed.
“I understand that everything is needed for defense, but all the poplars that are 50 years old have been cut down, and my heart bleeds. Although we understand that if there is peace and everything is fine, it will all be restored. If only the people remain alive and healthy, everything else is temporary,” Varvara states.
This belief that Russians will not enter Pokrovsk because peace is coming is chanted like a mantra in the streets of the city.
“They say there will be a ceasefire, there will be silence, and negotiations will take place. We hope they will agree on something… We lived so well here,” sighs 72-year-old Valentina, waiting at the entrance to the center. She is one of the pensioners who come for meals by themselves.
“What can I do? The pension is small, I am alone, a widow. It might get worse. I don’t know,” she replies when asked if she will stay in Pokrovsk. This explanation is common among locals: there is nowhere to go and nothing to live on.
Meanwhile, Oksana is already hanging bags on the bicycles—hers and Vladimir's, who helps her deliver meals—and heads to the neighboring blocks to visit mobility-impaired clients. These two microdistricts—Shakhtarsky and Lazurny—are closest to the Russians and seem to be the most battered.
Cut Off from Civilization
The “Press” label on my bulletproof vest attracts attention. Journalists are not always welcomed in frontline cities of the Donetsk region, but here, for the first time in years of full-scale invasion, residents approached me themselves, asking to record their words and “send them to Kyiv.”
They feel cut off. Recently, mobile communication disappeared—the last marker of civilization in Pokrovsk. It barely works in some parts of the city. Heating, water, and electricity were lost even earlier. Internet access can only be found in the post offices, which are still operational. The last “Ukrposhta” is set to close on January 15.
One driver, passing by me, reversed to share his outrage over the felled poplars. Locals took pride in them and find it hard to accept this loss.
In line for hot meals, grandmothers asked to convey to Zelensky that Pokrovsk has become a “dead city.”
“There is nothing: cold and hunger. There’s nowhere to warm up or heat food; at least there should be heating points somewhere,” the grandmothers say but request not to disclose their names, fearing for what “government will be.”
At the “Nova Poshta” office, a woman approached me, asking if we had come to tell the real situation in the city.
“If there’s any chance to convey that we are just like everyone else, we just want to live… We are not waiting for anyone, we just want to be in our city,” she says through tears, introducing herself as Nadiya Kovalchuk.
3The woman is outraged that, in her opinion, the Pokrovsk military-civilian administration did not prepare the city for defense and was late in setting up “dragon's teeth” and other fortifications, as well as failing to properly assist the residents who remain in the city.
“I hope everything will be fine thanks to our guys. Thank you for listening, because it’s frustrating to the point of tears, as the authorities only come for the cameras, but no one cares about what the people are going through and how,” the woman complains.
Russians—Just Across the Thicket
“There is Shevchenko over there, a thicket, and this field,” the soldier Ivan from the 93rd brigade points out.
It was there, in the Shevchenko settlement, that Russians managed to breach the Ukrainian defenses in November and advance close to the city. This means they are just one thicket away from these streets of Pokrovsk.
Ivan, a 22-year-old platoon commander, enters the courtyard of a burning house. The Russians struck it in the morning, but it is already evening, and it still smolders. The owners left earlier.
“This is complete chaos. 'Liberators.' But someone is waiting. There are those who are just waiting,” he says while lighting a cigarette.
4These are the extreme streets of the private sector in Pokrovsk. Some houses are already destroyed, while others have signs saying “People live here.”
Drones are constantly heard overhead. Both ours and the enemy's. Russians publish videos showing their UAVs flying deep into the city on fiber optics.
In the background, artillery shells are continuously landing. This is not hitting Pokrovsk itself, but the settlement of Pyschane, where battles are currently unfolding, Ivan says. From there, the Russians are trying to approach one of the routes into the city, which runs through Mezhova in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and from there to the crucial Pavlohrad — Donetsk highway. This would cut off key logistical routes.
“They are not taking the city but encircling it. They probably want to surround it so that someone will eventually surrender,” Ivan speculates.
But for now, the soldier believes they can hold on: “Everything is in our hands; there are plenty of opportunities.”
Four Degrees in the Apartment
A brightly painted playground is surrounded by gray, shattered high-rises.
“Where the windows are boarded up, people live,” Oksana points to a damaged nine-story building in the Lazurny microdistrict, which seems uninhabitable.
The residents of Pokrovsk continue to live in the most destroyed parts of the city, but they are also setting up basements. Iron chimneys protrude from the lower floors of the houses—they are installing stoves. According to local authorities, more than 7,000 people remain in Pokrovsk.
About a month ago, Oksana recounts, a blast wave destroyed all the houses in the yard. A social worker enters one of these houses to deliver hot meals.
69-year-old Valentina Pavlovna opens the door, leaning on a crutch. She is dressed in a warm brown jacket, with blue mittens on her hands and a yellow knitted headband on her head.
“We’re holding on,” she replies with a laugh, albeit tired, when asked, “How are you?”
She was home when the blast hit the neighboring house. She recounts hearing several explosions.
“It’s cold; it’s four degrees in the apartment, but under the blankets, it’s manageable for now. I take off my jacket when I crawl under the blanket, but later, I might not take off the jacket at all. I have to get by somehow,” the woman says. “I think everything will remain here, but I hope we survive. And if it’s not meant to be, then it’s not meant to be.”
5Oksana hands her the trays of food, takes mandarins from her pocket, and hugs her goodbye. Valentina begins to cry.
“Well, quietly, quietly, maybe I’ll be back in a month,” Oksana comforts her. She plans to leave the city while the situation has worsened.