For residents of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, evacuation often begins with a defining blast – the explosion that makes staying impossible. For 69-year-old Tetiana Zaichikova, this moment arrived when a strike reduced her home to rubble.
The region has been the epicentre of heavy fighting for years, with evacuations a grim constant since Russia’s full-scale invasion began over three years ago.
Towns across the area, larger than Slovenia, are steadily emptying as Russian forces now control around 70 per cent of the territory.
Despite the escalating danger, some residents remain in their shattered cities, clinging to the fragile hope that the conflict will soon conclude.
This hope is fuelled by ongoing peace efforts, notably those led by Donald Trump, which have yielded no breakthroughs. They endure until the peril becomes too extreme even for military and police personnel to enter.
“We kept hoping. We waited for every round of negotiations. We thought somehow they would reach an agreement in our favor, and we could stay in our homes,” said Zaichikova, who still bears bruises and hematomas across her face.
If Zaichikova had taken even one step into the kitchen that night, she is convinced she would not have survived.
In Kostiantynivka — a city that once had a population of approximately 67,000 — conditions in recent months have become apocalyptic: There is no reliable electricity, water or gas, and nightly barrages grow heavier with each passing hour.
Russian forces fire all types of weapons while Ukrainian troops answer back, and the former industrial hub has become a proving ground crowded with drones overhead.
Zaichikova knew the city was barely livable, but she clung to the hope she would not lose the place where she had lived all her life and taught music at a kindergarten.
On the night of 28 August, after months of rarely leaving her home, she wanted only to make tea before bed. She switched on a night lamp and walked toward the kitchen. As she reached for the light switch, the blast hit.
A wooden beam and shelves collapsed on her. When she came to, the rubble rose as high as she stood. The entrance to her building was blocked.
Emergency services no longer operated in the city, too dangerous even for soldiers. “If we had been burning, we would have just burned,” she said.
Her neighbor swung a sledgehammer through the night until midday, finally breaking a hole for her to crawl through. Outside, she saw what she believed was the crater of a glide bomb.
