As Russian missiles fly over the city, at the Pokrovsk hospital in the Donetsk region, the corridors and rooms are empty. Patients have been transferred to Dnipro or elsewhere in Ukraine, and the last surgeon, idle, is so sad that he refuses to speak. In front of the emergency room entrance, two nurses confirm, on this Sunday, 1is September, that “It’s over, it’s the last day of the evacuation” from the regional central hospital. By evening, they too will have left.
In the city centre, in front of what was the depressing Druzhba Hotel and residential buildings bombed the night before, after having already been pounded a year ago, rescuers are searching through the rubble for possible missing people who have not been reported.
At the Pokrovsk market, surprisingly lively given that the Russian army is only a few kilometers from the city, merchants sell bread, fruit and preserves to soldiers who, unlike civilians, cannot evacuate the city, and who take advantage of the fact that there are still open stalls to stock up on provisions.
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“I will come back after the war”
Pokrovsk police patrol the streets, recalling the evacuation order announced on August 19 by the governor of the Donetsk region. The announcement is broadcast over loudspeakers, while police officers go door to door. In practice, as in other cities in Donbass previously conquered by the Russian army, the authorities do not force anyone to leave. Only families with children are encouraged by daily police visits to take their children to safety. The others do what they want, at the risk of their lives.
At the evacuation center set up in a school in the city, Svetlana (the interviewees did not want to give their names) has just registered to take the daily evacuation train. She leaves “in Lviv, then in Germany”with a heavy heart. “This is my home, this is Ukraine, but it is impossible to live under Russian occupation. I will return after the war.”
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Svetlana confirms that, as in other conquered cities of Donbass, some will stay. People either too old to move, or without family elsewhere, or those that Ukrainians call “those who wait…”that is to say, some of them are hoping for the arrival of the Russian army. They are, as always, estimated at around 10% of the population. They are often old nostalgics of the Soviet Union. “A colleague from the municipality, says Svetlana, said to me the other day, when we were cleaning the street near the Druzhba: “So you’re leaving too? You’re a traitor to Russia!” There are few of them…”
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