Ukraine: The last standoff before peace?

Table of Contents

As the military puts in their final efforts on the battlefield, exhausted civilians are struggling to cope with the increasingly harsh living conditions.

Euronews' international reporter Valerie Gauriat went to the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine to report on the situation in the area around Pokrovsk, a city at the centre of one of the war's most intense and pivotal battles.

In the thick of it all on the Pokrovsk frontline

This report takes you to the thick of it on the Pokrovsk frontline, with an artillery unit, and to a Ukrainian army operational command centre.

In one of the army's so-called stabilisation points, emergency care centres for wounded soldiers, we hear 22-year-old Sasha's story, as she clings to life despite the horrors she endures every day.

Not far away, in Pokrovsk, the city that's been hammered by relentless Russian shelling, the handful of remaining residents are refusing to bug out, despite the alarming number of civilian casualties.

The only thing they're left with is destruction

“Retirees aren't keen to leave, nor are those waiting for the 'Russian peace', as they say” sighs Maksym, an officer co-ordinating civil-military relations with the Ukrainian army, showing us through the rubble. “There's a belief going around that today's Russia, replacing the old USSR, will come and sort everything out. The truth is, nothing gets rebuilt. The only thing they leave behind is a mess.”

Our journalist then travelled further west, to the industrial area of western Donbass, a potential target for Russian forces. This is where most of Ukraine's coal mines are situated, providing a vital resource for the country's power grid.

In the region's oldest coal mine, we talk to the underground soldiers who are keeping Ukraine's energy supply chain running.

Among them are a growing number of women, as an increasing number of blokes are being called up, or have fallen on the battlefield. Prohibited from working in the mines before the war under a law going back to Soviet times, women now make up 5% of the mine's underground workforce.

A lot of them were forced to leave their homes because of the war, including Oksana. Her life was turned upside down by the shelling of her hometown of Bakhmut, where her eldest son and her dad were killed.

Holding on through the anticipation of triumph

She found comfort at the mine, ensuring her income, and regards her job as helping out with the war effort. A choreographer before the war, Oksana gives dance lessons to teenagers after her shift at the mine.

“Me, I'm driven by me love for kids – they're the future of our country – and for art. As well as by me faith in our win,” she says. “I hope I'll stay strong enough to see peace arrive.”