The White Angels of the Ukrainian Police Force deliver bread and humanitarian aid to families clinging to life and home on the front line.
After a year of war, Krasnohorivka may appear like a ghost town on the surface, but a handful of residents are reluctant to leave.
Oksana Pokmush said: “We live in our homes. Why do we have to leave our homes? Why do I have to run away? Let them (the Russians) run away. Whoever can’t handle it can go. Those who were afraid have left. I built this house for years. My parents were buried here. Why would I leave here?”
Founded in the late nineteenth century, the manufacturing city is no stranger to conflict. Krasnohorivka was occupied by Nazi Germany for two years during World War II and was the scene of intense fighting in 2014 when Ukrainian armed forces held it against Russian-backed forces.
It has been on the front line for the best part of a decade, and for the past 12 months it has been shelled and shelled by Russian forces.
Many of those who have lost their homes during that time have taken refuge in the city’s hospital, a building that has also been targeted.
Valentina Mozgova is the last doctor left to treat patients there. She said: “I don’t understand. Why are they (the Russians) shooting at the hospitals and at our homes? People are suffering. Probably they want to force us out of the city, from houses, from the hospital, so we will do it. treat people. I keep wondering. I don’t know.”
Many of those left in the city are elderly and reluctant to leave home and memories behind, a fact not lost on one of the White Angels, Maxim.
He said: “I can still create something, I can build it. And the old people who are already 70, 80 years old, when will they create everything? Their lives are over. Here, under these ruins, their lives will remain here because they’ve already lived it all. They won’t have another life. Certainly it’s horrible, it’s monstrous. This is a crime against humanity.”
The city is resigned to its fate. The Russians are getting closer and closer and delivering humanitarian aid to Krasnohorivka is becoming increasingly risky.