The Russians are about to take a key Ukrainian city. In neighboring Bakhmut, those with nowhere to go prepare for his arrival

Video summary of the war Ukraine - Russia: June 10 10:30

Bakhmut, Ukraine (CNN) --

At first glance, Bakhmut doesn't look like a city at war.

As we drove to the city in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on a warm, sunny morning, men in orange vests tended the roses.

The tall trees that shade the streets are full of leaves.

Traffic is light due to fuel shortages, so many residents commute by bicycle.

This peaceful façade, however, is deceptive.

Explosions regularly echo over Bakhmut: the constant bursts of artillery and missiles outside and, occasionally, inside the city.

Our first stop was at a municipal building where volunteers were handing out bread.

As gas for cooking is no longer available, the bakeries have stopped operating.

Every day a truck arrives after a 10-hour journey with 10,000 loaves of bread, distributed free of charge, two per person.

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Bakhmut residents receive free loaves of bread.

Lyilya has brought her two grandchildren to collect bread.

"We support them," she says, explaining what she does to keep them calm.

"We tell them that there are some guys playing with tanks. What else can I tell them? How can I harm their mental health? You can't do that. It's impossible."

Just as the last words leave his mouth, the air shakes with multiple explosions.

She addresses her grandchildren with sweet words of comfort.

On a nearby wooded hill, thin wisps of black smoke billow into the sky from which the explosions are coming, most likely a Ukrainian missile launcher.

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  "They are everywhere," say the neighbors

Nobody flinches.

No one runs for cover.

Volunteers from Tetyana are in charge of distributing bread.

A stocky woman with an easy smile exchanges pleasantries as she passes out the bread.

When I ask him if he intends to stay in Bakhmut if Russian forces approach, his demeanor changes.

She shakes her head.

"We love our people. Our graves are here. Our parents lived through it. We're not going anywhere," she insists, her voice trembling.

Tears well up in her eyes.

"It is our land. We will not give it to anyone. Even if it is destroyed, we will rebuild it. Everything will be..." and here she gives two thumbs up.

A teddy bear wrapped in bandages is placed at the site of an attack on Bakhmut.

Bakhmut is located along the main highway leading to the twin cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, now the epicenter of the fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The latter has been the scene of intense street-to-street fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

For weeks, Russian forces have shelled the highway and Bakhmut, in what is seen as an attempt to cut off the twin cities from the rest of Ukraine-controlled territory.

Ukrainian officials have said that most of Severodonetsk is now under Russian control and that Moscow plans to isolate it in the coming days.

Overnight, Russian forces destroyed the second of three bridges between the two cities and are heavily shelling the third.

Serhiy Hayday, head of the military administration of the Luhansk region, said on Sunday: "As I understand it, they want to completely isolate Severodonetsk and leave it without any possibility of evacuating people or bringing ammunition or assistance."

Hayday says he expects the Russians to "throw in all their reserves to take the city," and said they may cut off and take the main road into the city.

If that city and Lysychansk fall, Bakhmut is feared to be next.

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Unlike other parts of the country, here in the East it makes no sense that the worst of this war is over.

Russian forces have made slow but steady progress.

The head of Ukrainian intelligence recently told The Guardian that for every piece of artillery the Ukrainian military possesses, Russia has between 10 and 15. Others, including Ukraine's President Vlodymyr Zelensky, claim that as many as 100 soldiers are killed every day. Ukrainians, and around 500 wounded.

In this harsh war of attrition, Russia, much larger and better armed, presses its advantage.

All this is no secret here.

In a city-run dormitory, Lyudmila prepares lunch for her two children, frying onions and boiling potatoes.

She fled her town on the outskirts of Bakhmut in March to escape shelling.

"Home" is now a small, cramped room.

Her husband died before the war.

Kolya came to Bakhmut with his mother and sister in March to escape the shelling.

She now lives with them in a small room in a student dormitory.

She says she has nowhere to go, and hardly any money, and asks with a bit of irritation, what's the point?

The Russians are coming.

"It's the same everywhere," she says.

"When [the Russians] are done here, they will go further."

He shrugs and walks away down the dark hallway.

"That's all I have to say," she calls over her shoulder.

On Thursday morning, Russian planes attacked an agricultural warehouse complex on the outskirts of Bakhmut.

It was the third attack on the complex in recent weeks.

A gaping hole in the pavement shows where a bomb went off, scattering shrapnel in all directions, ripping holes in a grain store.

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Plump pigeons circle overhead, ready to feast on the grain.

The weather has been good this year.

The wheat harvest is only a few weeks away.

However, the war threatens to reduce production by a third.

Bakhmut Police Commander Pavlo Diachenko spends his days documenting the aftermath of air and artillery strikes.

He knows very well how random they seem.

The attacks, he tells me with a sigh, can happen "at any time. In the morning, at night. We don't [know] when."

A small group of people gather mid-morning in a parking lot next to a municipal building, waiting for a volunteer-operated bus to take them to the relative safety of the city of Dnipro, a four-hour drive to the west.

A warehouse in Bakhmut containing grain was hit by an airstrike on the morning of Thursday June 9

Igor, a peacetime beekeeper, is startled by a huge explosion while standing in the shade.

He leaves with his cat, Simon Simonyonich, who is frowning through the bars of his blue and white cage.

Simon Simonyonich has been out of his mind ever since Bakhmut was attacked, Igor comments.

"I left everything here: my bees and my house with all my belongings," he says, holding Simon's cage as he prepares to board the bus.

Moments later, another explosion shakes the ground.

Soon the bus is loaded, the passengers sitting in their seats.

"Is there anyone here with the army?" asks the driver.

The bus is strictly for civilians.

A sarcastic laugh is heard among the passengers.

Most are past military age.

The door slams shut.

The bus starts to move.

After one last explosion, the bus pulls out of the parking lot.

CNN's Ghazi Balkiz and Kesa Julia contributed to this report.

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