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Video length: 9 min
War in Ukraine: Pokrovsk’s last days under continuous fire from the Russian army
War in Ukraine: Pokrovsk’s last days under continuous fire from the Russian army
(Anaïs Hanquet, Patrick Miette, Valérie Lucas and Violetta Pedorych / FRANCE TELEVISIONS)
A France 2 team followed the tragic flight of the Ukrainian population in the face of the Russian advance towards Pokrovsk. This strategic city in Donbass is one of the last still under kyiv’s control.
Leave, before it’s too late. For ten days, a France Télévisions team followed the inexorable advance of the Russian army in eastern Ukraine, near Pokrovsk, and the panic of the Ukrainian population. These images were filmed at the end of August. The Russians were then only ten kilometers from this strategic city in Donbass, one of the last still under Ukrainian control. The noise of bombs is incessant.
That day, a resident, Olenka, waits alone on a bench. All her neighbors have already fled. She lives without water, without electricity and has not eaten for several days. “My brother promised to help me leave, but he is too afraid of the bombs to come.she confides in tears, exhausted. I have to get away from this hell.” A car is approaching. Her worried brother finally braves the danger to come and get her.
They have to act quickly. To cram a whole life into a single trailer. The city, the schools, the houses are under constant bombardment. At the end of August, the order was given to the population to evacuate. Before leaving the city, some residents hastily barricade their windows in order to protect their homes from the bombardment of the Russian army. “We don’t have time to talk to you”testifies one of them, very busy.
Gradually, the tension spread throughout Pokrovsk. Margueritte expressed her anxiety. At 27, she was going to leave the city alone, while her husband was fighting a few kilometers away. “I’m afraid of waking up one morning and seeing Russian vehicles outside my house.she explains. My husband is a soldier, I know very well what could happen to me if the Russians come here.” Concerns even seem to have spread to the ranks of the soldiers. The Ukrainian fighters we meet are struggling and refuse to talk to us.
On August 28, the authorities decided to evacuate the only hospital in the city. The Russians had just advanced two kilometers. The doctors had three days to transfer all the patients away from Pokrovsk. The escape was a new ordeal for these patients injured by bombings and Irina, a neurologist who had worked here for more than twenty years, tried to reassure them as best she could. When the room emptied, she collapsed in turn. “It’s a leap into the unknown (…) I think people don’t realize what’s happening to them.”