The people of Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine have lived in the shadow of war for more than a decade, but many are now fleeing its last Kyiv-controlled cities as Russian air strikes intensify, the civilian death toll soars, and a potentially brutal winter starts to set in.
United Nations data shows that during the first eight months of this year, 400 Ukrainian civilians were killed or injured every week – a 55 per cent increase on the same period in 2025 – and nearly 2,500 civilians in front-line areas such as Donetsk were killed or wounded by Russia’s powerful glide bombs, a 62 per cent year-on-year rise.
Russian attacks are only getting bloodier as winter looms – civilian casualties in Ukraine last month were 85 per cent higher than in September 2025.
For many residents of cities such as Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, the largest remaining links in Ukraine’s so-called fortress belt in Donetsk, the now-constant threat from Russian drones, bombs and missiles has become impossible to bear.
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“For a long time the war was somewhere ‘over there’. We could still go to work and try to live as normally as possible. But the war [is getting] nearer and nearer,” says Larysa Solovyova, who fled Kramatorsk with husband Volodymyr this year.
“In the end I just couldn’t sleep at night at all. I felt such fear. It seemed drones were overhead all the time, you heard explosions all around, and people were being killed,” adds the former nurse.
“I can’t imagine what it will be like in Kramatorsk this winter. Life there is so dangerous, even without considering what could happen with water and power supplies. It’s a horrible thought, that people will die there, just trying to hold on inside their own four walls.”
Her husband Volodymyr worked in one of Kramatorsk’s factories and then became a bus driver. He shakes his head as he recalls how a Russian glide-bomb attack killed more than 30 people on two buses in Kramatorsk this month.
“The situation just got worse and worse,” says Olena Kovalyova, who fled the village of Novyi Kavkaz outside Kramatorsk this year.
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“If it was more or less okay before, even though you heard [explosions], now drones are literally flying over the fields. It’s like roulette – you go to bed and hear them flying around, and you have no idea where they are going to strike,” she adds.
“Mostly elderly people are left in the village now. They have nowhere to go, and some have animals to look after. For older people in general, it’s hard to leave your home and move to a new place.”
Kovalyova and husband Hryhorii left the city of Donetsk after it was seized by Russian-led militants in 2014, as the Kremlin reacted to Ukraine’s pro-western Maidan Revolution by illegally annexing Crimea and unleashing violence on the east.
The Solovyovs lived through three months of occupation by the militants and their Russian leaders that year, before Ukrainian forces liberated Kramatorsk, Slovyansk and other nearby cities and drove the enemy back to Donetsk, prompting the Kremlin to send in regular troops to halt a potentially victorious counteroffensive by Kyiv’s army.
Twelve years on, and nearly five years into Russia’s all-out invasion, Kyiv holds only about a fifth of Donetsk region and the front line is less than 15km from Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
Ukraine has heavily fortified the cities and surrounding areas and refuses to bow to Kremlin demands to give them up as a precondition for any peace deal, arguing they are not only still home to tens of thousands of people, but also protect the flatlands of central Ukraine from Russian attack.
Kyiv’s forces have pushed back Russian troops northeast of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk in recent weeks, and say their operation “Vivaldi” has retaken 16 villages and more than 250 sq km of territory.
The counterattack has eased pressure from Russia’s ground forces, but unrelenting air strikes continue, and the authorities in Kramatorsk last week expanded a mandatory evacuation zone for families with young children.
“The safety situation is deteriorating, and waiting until the danger reaches your home is too great a risk. This is especially true when children are involved. I urge parents not to delay. Evacuation saves lives,” said Vadym Filashkin, head of the Donetsk region’s military administration.
Ukraine has essentially halted Russia’s slow and immensely bloody advance on the battlefield, but faces ever-greater threats from the air. The US has stopped supplying the Patriot rockets it needs to down ballistic missiles, and vital satellite internet provision by Elon Musk’s Starlink system was disrupted last week, as US president Donald Trump again strongarms Kyiv to make a deal with Moscow.
“We already see ... that the Russian Federation is renewing its attacks on energy infrastructure. We see it in Kyiv and Kharkiv and the cities closest to the frontline,” says Iryna Tymchyshyn, a spokeswoman for UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, in Kyiv.
“This year the Russian Federation has also started to strike water and sanitation systems, so this is our primary concern, that this year not only energy and heating facilities but also water supplies will be targeted,” she adds.
“Maybe people could endure many hours without electricity, and people already have coping strategies for this, and there are some backup options for heating. But if entire cities, where millions of people live, will be left without water supplies and sanitation services, this will really have a devastating impact on civilians.”
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The UNHCR and other aid agencies support state-run transit centres that offer displaced people food and shelter, medical and psychological help, assistance with documentation, benefits and accommodation, and other services.
“From the start of 2026 until August, over 111,000 people passed through transit centres and received support there. But that doesn’t show the total number of people displaced, because so many people are self-evacuating,” Tymchyshyn says.
“According to the local authorities, approximately 80,000 people are now living in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk region. That’s about a third of the population recorded a year ago. So ... we have seen a quite significant displacement from this area.”
Most are staying in neighbouring regions such as Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, to be close to home in case a chance to return emerges.
But the Solovyovs and the Kovalyovs are now living in the western region of Lviv, near the border with Poland. They still hold out hope of going home one day.
“If Ukraine can keep Donbas and rebuild, then we will go back,” says Kovalyova.
Solovyova’s eyes fill with tears as she talks about having to start again as a pensioner 1,000km from Kramatorsk.
“It’s very hard. At night sometimes I dream about home,” she says. “But I feel much safer here. I can finally relax and sleep normally. At home I was always rushing for cover in the basement, even though it wouldn’t have done much good in a direct hit.”
At a time when Ukraine feels increasingly abandoned by Trump’s United States, the UNHCR and other aid agencies are urging the world not to forget its people.
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“Ukraine could be facing the most difficult time of the full-scale war, and millions of people face very uncertain months,” Tymchyshyn says. “This is when support is really needed, perhaps more than ever.”
