REPCO

In the roughly two years since I first visited embattled Ukraine in November 2022, the situation in the country has changed drastically. Then I arrived in Kyiv on November 18th, mere days after Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive operations that liberated Kherson and pushed the Russian invaders out of most of Kharkiv Oblast. Despite the cold winter days and lack of power, morale in Ukraine was extremely high. Soldiers spoke of victory over the Russians, while volunteers, normal citizens and foreigners rallied around the blue and yellow flag to support the country’s defence and aid the humanitarian catastrophe.

Two years later, the situation looks devastatingly different. Russia has made numerous successful gains in Donbas, pushing up against the important logistics hub of Pokrovsk; moving closely to the city of Kupiansk; indiscriminately terrorizing civilians throughout the entire country with Iranian and Russian-made drones; and slowly raising the cities of Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia to the ground with massive glide bombs.

A recent week-long trip to Ukraine’s front lines – including Sumy, Kupiansk, Pokrovsk and southern Donetsk – wielded a number of impressions reflecting the worsening military situation and the country’s desperation and refusal to not give up.

Dark days in the east

For roughly two months now, Russia has been slowly gaining territory in multiple parts of Ukraine. Near Pokrovsk alone, Russia’s military has taken dozens of towns and villages and pushed over 33 kilometres since taking the city of Avdiivka earlier this year. In the past weeks, Russian forces have moved with notable speed and are on the outskirts of the city of Pokrovsk, positioning them to shell the city indiscriminately day and night. In order to prevent the worst, Ukrainian authorities ordered the mandatory evacuation of the city. Today, the city is a ghost town with little infrastructure, constant explosions from Russian artillery, crumbling buildings, and wandering dogs. Outside the city, Ukrainians are rapidly digging trenches to prepare for the worst.

Kupiansk is in a similar situation. As of my visit at the end of October, the Russians were pushing on the outskirts of the city. Every 30 seconds or so, incoming shelling boomed throughout the city. Most civilians have evacuated. Nearly no undamaged buildings remain. Destruction is omnipresent. A few hardened civilians continue to sell their wares at a makeshift local market – the city’s former market is now nothing but a pile of twisted metal and charred wood, hit by ballistic missiles only months ago. Soldiers are the most common site in the city, coming back to the right bank of the river for a short respite or to repair their equipment before returning to the battles on the other side.

Ukraine’s military situation is just as dismal across most of the front line. The lack of substantial western support, especially the ability to use long-range weapons against Russia’s logistics hubs and military-production capacity, has meant that while the West falters in providing Ukraine with sufficient shells, tanks and air defence systems, Russia has been able to ramp up its production, transferring that advantage to the battlefield and overwhelming Ukraine’s defensive capabilities. Ukraine, for its part, tirelessly works to defend every inch of territory it can, slowing down Russia’s advances where possible, but not always successfully.

The few souls left

On a cool Friday morning, my team and I met with Oleksandr from Proliska, an organization of volunteers that evacuates the old and sick from frontline regions. Joining their group, equipped with an ambulance, doctor and medical supplies, we drove through the constant shelling of Pokrovsk to a small suburb of houses. An older man, immobile due to health issues, was to be evacuated to a hospital in Kyiv. The immediate evacuation from his home took only about an hour. His neighbours and friends, mostly older women, shed tears as he was loaded into the ambulance. All the while, shelling could be heard in the distance.

Oleksandr and his organization run evacuations like this on a nearly daily basis. Pokrovsk is their main focus now, but they have been operating across much of the front line in Donbas. Their goal, as Oleksandr explained, “is to show locals that leaving their homes, despite the hardship, is far better than taking the risk staying as the front line edges nearer”. Another volunteer, who is also named Oleksandr, explained that as of November 7th, roughly 11,500 civilians – five per cent of which are children – remain in besieged Pokrovsk. The city formerly had a population of over 60,000.

Pokrovsk, like Kupiansk in the north and many other frontline cities, no longer has electricity or running water. Those who choose to remain are often on their own, as the regional authorities can no longer provide for them safely. Oleksandr explains that the Russian shelling of the frontline villages around Pokrovsk has increased in recent days. Currently, the Russians are about seven kilometres from the city. Due to the increased danger for volunteers, only 30 to 50 people can be evacuated per week by all the volunteer organizations. Some of those who can leave on their own are doing so, but many others have chosen to remain out of fear of the unknown. Of course, leaving their homes and legacies for new cities is for many an extremely difficult psychological hurdle to overcome.

On average, roughly 2500 to 3000 people are evacuated from Donetsk in any given month. This is in large part due to the volunteers who work tirelessly to make this happen. Those who cannot be evacuated by volunteers, the army and the Ukrainian government – or those who do not want to be evacuated, preferring to take their chances, either due to fear, ignorance, or misled allegiances – are often left to fend for themselves against the destructive power of Russia’s advancing army.

Looking into the unknown

Ukraine’s military situation has never looked as perilous as it does now, except for maybe the first few weeks of Russia’s invasion. Despite having a massive professional army; returning a significant amount of territory to Ukraine; developing the capabilities to destroy much of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet; and attacking critical infrastructure inside of Russia, never mind pushing into and occupying a notable portion of Russia’s Kursk region, the situation for Ukraine is growing more worrisome.

Three years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the country’s society is growing tired. Despite many efforts continuing and more and more volunteers signing up – both for the military and the civil efforts to support it – wave after wave of bad news coming out of the east is taking its toll. Talks about peace negotiations are more common than a year ago, though most concede that any “peace” with Russia will only be a short-term freezing of hostilities, allowing Russia to restock and improve its army for another invasion in the future.

Internationally, the situation is hardly better. Western partners are failing in their promises to support Ukraine’s defence. The recent election of former US President Donald Trump portends significant risks for Ukraine, especially when considering his rhetoric; those he surrounds himself with (such as Elon Musk and J.D. Vance, both of whom have used very anti-Ukraine rhetoric); and his “peace plans”, which look to potentially gift Russia the Ukrainian territory it occupies in return for freezing the conflict, but without providing Ukraine with any real defence guarantees.

These plans, however, do not consider the many souls that are physically caught up in the conflict. These are the families living in cities destroyed by Russia, such as Mariupol, or the thousands of towns and villages in Donbas that Ukraine has promised not to leave behind. Those who survive the daily attacks on their homes now will be left to the brutal occupation regime of the Russians, who employ torture, forced anti-Ukrainian education, forced migration, and cultural and linguistic whitewashing to remove all aspects of Ukrainian identity from locals. Despite the fear and the gruelling nature of this war, every single civilian with whom I had the opportunity to speak with during my journey east shared the same sentiment: they want to live in a free, peaceful Ukraine, and refuse to give up that dream. Without sustained – and enhanced – support from the West, including the United States, Ukraine's future, the well-being of its people, and their aspirations for peace and freedom, are left vulnerable to a deeply uncertain fate.

Joshua R. Kroeker is an independent researcher, founder of the boutique analytic firm Reaktion Group, an analyst at the political analysis project R.Politik, and an editor at RANE. He holds degrees from the University of British Columbia in Canada, Heidelberg University in Germany and St Petersburg State University, Russia.

Public task financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland within the grant competition “Public Diplomacy 2024 – 2025 – the European dimension and countering disinformation”.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the official positions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.