We were out with the police in just a few minutes.
The noise was distant. But close enough to interrupt the patrol.
“Turn around, turn around,” said Lieutenant Colonel Sasha Malish. “It’s a shelling.”
Then the police radio rang.
“Attention all patrols … go to the shelter.”
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Image: The Donbass region was destroyed by Russian shelling
Kramatorsk police left their headquarters weeks ago. This is a Russian target.
And so the drive, at speed, returned to their makeshift base and makeshift bomb shelter in a place we didn’t want to reveal.
The second blow seemed closer. Strong boom. This is a daily threat here in this city in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.
“He was less than a kilometer from us,” said Colonel Malish.
It is from the bomb shelter that they face many challenges.
These officers were the first to respond to the attack on the station here a little over a week ago. More than 50 people died – mostly women and children.
But this is more than Russian shells. They are looking for saboteurs who are in this city and are believed to be sending images of potential targets to Russian forces on the other side.
After 15 minutes everything was clear and we could resume the patrol.
Image: Pokrovsk is now the closest place where people can get off by train
Colonel Malish is only 29 years old and is in charge of patrols here and in the neighboring town.
We passed an apartment building that was destroyed in one of the attacks. A bomb or a rocket from an airplane, the colonel told us. At least three people died. Surprisingly, there weren’t many more.
The station is in the center of a city that now has only half the population. The others left.
The station was the evacuation point, but no longer; not after the chaos here.
“It was awful. People were lying without arms and legs. Everyone cried for help. We were trying to bandage them, “one of the colonel’s even younger officers told me.
Read more: Young people who lost loved ones and limbs in the attack on Kramatorsk station
Image: Map describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
However, there are times to be grateful. We visited a kindergarten that was hit. But the children were not inside at the time.
Of course, every time a building is hit, so much damage is probably repairable, but who knows when.
The trip took us north of Kramatorsk. We passed the signs of battle beyond wrecked vehicles pulled back, fuel tanks heading forward.
The city of Slavyansk, 25 minutes north of Kramatorsk, is a symbolic award for Russia. This was the first place they took in the war in 2014. This time it turned out to be more difficult.
Most of the people living here have left. But some remain. And in front of the supermarket with lids we met the flower sellers from Slavyansk.
Image: Flower sellers in Slavyansk say they will not leave their country
“Many have left the city,” one told me. “I have nowhere to go. I will not go. This is my land and my country.”
A man next to her said: “Russia and Ukraine were brothers. Now they are fighting. I don’t understand why. I never thought Putin would do something like that.”
Then, for the fifth time since sunrise, the siren sounded again.
This forced our meeting with the mayor to go down to the shelter under the old Soviet administrative headquarters of the city.
“I’m worried about what might happen,” Mayor Vadim Lyakh told me.
Image: Vadim Lyakh, the mayor of Slavyansk, is worried about what might happen next
“We are preparing for all scenarios because we see what happened in Mariupol and other cities. Most of the people who left here are elderly or people with chronic diseases,” he said.
Pokrovsk, 60 miles away, is now the closest place people can get off the train.
And there, on platform one, we saw the brutality of this war.
At 4.30 for the safety of Lviv in the west was a train full of the most vulnerable: the disabled and the mentally ill. Some were in wheelchairs; some wore blankets.
The cost of war to one man.
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