Anna Voytenko and Alina Smutko
Time is running out for Ukrainians fleeing Russian aggression {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}}
TRETSK, Ukraine – Time is running out for those hoping to escape the devastated town of TRETSK in eastern Ukraine.
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Russian forces have been advancing slowly but surely, pounding the town day and night with rockets, artillery and air strikes, part of a broader advance in the Donetsk region that Ukraine has been unable to stop.
Piles of rubble remain where buildings once stood, burnt out apartment buildings are uninhabitable, a fallen church tower and smoking pipes from artillery fire at close range.
In the courtyard of a house, a group of mostly elderly residents gather to listen to Ivan, a police officer in camouflage uniform, as he tries to persuade them to leave Tretsk with the evacuation teams.
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Hundreds of officers like him, and Ukrainian volunteers, are trying to do the same along the front line, before towns and villages are reduced to rubble and annexed into Russian-controlled territory.
“Are you all going to stay?” he asked, speaking quickly and decisively. “Don’t you see how things are changing? If you stay put, this isn’t going to happen.”
Some have accepted his offer, others have turned it down. Many of those who stayed behind are unwilling to leave for the precarious life in safer parts of Ukraine. Some refuse to leave elderly relatives and friends.
“I’m the only one left. Everyone else is buried,” said Valentina, a former school principal who gave only her first name. “Especially the last two days, planes are flying in and attacking every night,” the 75-year-old added, crying.
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“All bloody”
The woman next to her cried out, “God gave us the earth and the sky, and they trampled it and covered it with blood. Everything is covered in blood. And the boys…”
As residents hoping to evacuate huddled around minivans with their few belongings, Tetyana Nikonova, a head of local military authorities, said about 5,000 people remained in Toletsk.
Ten years ago, the estimated population was about 35,000.
“Many are refusing to leave. We talk to them, the boys try to persuade them but they don’t want to go,” she said. “We are providing them with everything we can – accommodation, transport, all for free, but people are hiding in basements.”
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Oleksandr plans to evacuate, but first he and police officers freed the chickens from a chicken coop in the yard, as well as the dog and goat from their chains.
Valentina Natyazhko, 88, had previously fled Toletsk but returned briefly to retrieve a refrigerator from her apartment because she needed it for her new home in the nearby town of Kostyantynivka.
“All the food has gone bad and we have had to throw away the sausages, mayonnaise and butter,” she said. “We came to get this fridge. Fridges are expensive, so where are we going to get the money to buy one?”
Sergiy and Irina were a couple sitting together on a bench outside their apartment, discussing whether to leave, when a police officer told them that if they decided to leave, they should meet at the same place the following morning and the police would come to pick them up.
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“I’m afraid I won’t be able to come back. No one will let me come back here,” said Sergii, 65.
“But we are leaving, Sergei Yuryevich, aren’t we?” Irina asked, turning to him with tears in her eyes and touching his hand.
“I’m leaving,” he sighed. “I’m leaving.”
This article has been generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications to the text.
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