From the Telegraph / Yahoo!News:
"A note for a soldier signals time is running out on Ukraine’s front line
A note scrawled in Cyrillic lies on a kitchen table in downtown Dobropillia, eastern Ukraine. It is intended for the eyes of Ukrainian soldiers, its contents are a final plea. Outside, the distant thuds of cluster bombs echo across the town.
“Hello, Eugene and guys! We are sad to say we are leaving. So you can stay for however long you wish. Eugene, you can keep the keys. I wish you all the best, to stay alive and unharmed. Thank you for defending us.
“With deep respect,
“The owner of the flat.
“P.S. Can’t get through – there is no signal.”
The note is placed at the centre of the wooden table, carefully handwritten before the family fled their apartment; the washed pots and pans still stacked on the side.
Eugene is a soldier who has been using the flat as a last staging post as he defends the city of Dobropillia, in the Donetsk Oblast. Who will find the note is unclear.
Its capture would help secure the entirety of the Donetsk region, which Vladimir Putin has claimed in his maximalist demands.
Russian troops have been making dangerous advances, effectively severing a key road that is the lifeline for Ukraine’s defences in Pokrovsk with drone attacks and ambushes.
Time is quickly running out for the soldiers on the front line and families are having to uproot their lives as the bombs get closer and closer...
For those in Dobropillia, an end to the fighting cannot come soon enough.
Last Thursday, regional authorities issued a mandatory evacuation order for families with children in Dobropillia and nine nearby settlements. Once home to around 28,000 people, locals estimate that 70 to 80 per cent of the population has already fled.
A strict four-hour window, from 11am to 3pm, in which residents can go outside is now in place. The streets are largely deserted, filled only by a small group of the downtrodden who linger in one of the town’s destroyed markets...
According to Ukrainian soldiers in the area, the Russians are employing tactics reminiscent of the Germans in the Second World War, identifying weak points in logistics, then moving in to sever them. Cutting off supply lines has been a priority for Putin’s commanders since last year.
This emphasis on logistics has helped drive the fierce fighting now erupting around Dobropillia, both in Pokrovsk to the south and Kostiantynivka to the east. “Once one falls, there goes the other,” one soldier says...
The prospects are grim, and morale among Ukrainian troops here is low. Many have applied to transfer to other brigades, but the process is so mired in bureaucracy that few pursue it unless they are truly desperate.
The constant threat of drones has turned even routine missions into a deathtrap. “We will lose Pokrovsk,” one soldier says. “It’s just a matter of time.”
The same grim outlook is now spreading among civilians. In Dobropillia, Ruslan is dismantling an air conditioner from the side of his home. He is evacuating to Cherkasy, a city in central Ukraine, the next day.
“It’s gotten worse,” he says. “Even the glide bombs are starting to reach us.”
Across town in an empty playground, Paulina, 15, and her sister Valeria, seven, play on a swing set outside their family’s apartment block.
On Wednesday, their evacuation was expected, along with their parents to the neighbouring Dnipro region, taking their cat with them. This would be their second time moving since Russia’s invasion...
The fall of Pokrovsk is widely anticipated. If it does, only open farmland will separate the front line from Pavlohrad, terrain that is notoriously difficult for Ukrainian forces to defend.
“They will not stop,” Daria says, referring to the Russian advance that may soon engulf the city..
The remains of a building in central Dobropillia, including a popular pizza restaurant. It was struck using a ‘double-tap’ method, where a second missile is fired to deter rescue efforts - Audrey MacAlpine
In the abandoned apartment in downtown Dobropillia, the note remains on the kitchen table. It was meant for Ukrainian soldiers, the family’s last hope of ever returning home. The question now is, who will be the next to read it?"
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