This is how an intense battle unfolds in eastern Ukraine 3:01
Warning:
This story contains details that some readers may find disturbing.
Kostiantynivka, Ukraine (CNN) --
The streets around Vyacheslav Tarasov's home on Ukraine's eastern front are riddled with holes from shell explosions.
The surrounding buildings are mostly empty, windowless and cold.
Bakhmut has spent months facing the relentless firepower of a frustrated Russian army.
In its quest for an increasingly rare victory on the battlefield, Moscow has leveled buildings with rockets and missiles and sent endless waves of infantry to fight among the destroyed houses.
Tarasov, 48, was taking refuge from the shelling in the basement of his house, where he now has to live.
But last week he dared to go out and buy vegetables to prepare the national dish, borscht.
"I don't know what they used," he recalls.
"But the force was incredible, because my arm went flying, just like that... I had my guts in my hands."
Her face pales as she recounts the strong images still fresh in her mind.
"He was wearing a leather jacket and if it hadn't been for that, I would have been blown to pieces. I mean, my guts would have been everywhere... I lost a lot of blood. I remember seeing it: a huge puddle."
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'Blood, mud, trenches': Ukrainian soldier compares Battle of Bakhmut to World Wars
The blast that went through Tarasov's body killed his friend, and as the shelling continued, he realized he too would not survive.
"I'll tell you the truth," he says.
"I prayed to survive."
Tarasov is a devout Christian and believes that an "invisible power" saved his life.
He is also grateful to the Ukrainian soldiers who put him in their truck and took him to a hospital in Kostiantynivka, one of the few hospitals left capable of treating civilian wounded from the war.
When he arrived, Tarasov begged the doctors to save his limb.
"The first thing I asked was for my arm to be sewn up. I saw that it was completely torn and it was just hanging by the sleeve. And my stomach was burning. I figured it must be the intestines coming out. There was blood everywhere."
Vyacheslav Tarasov, a 48-year-old builder, lost his right arm after a bombing attack in Bakhmut.
Credit: Peter Rudden/CNN
Kostiantynivka medical staff have continued their work despite power and water cuts caused by repeated Russian attacks on the power grid.
One day last week, for eight hours, they had to rely on generators to keep the lights and heating on.
"Sometimes the power goes out," chief surgeon Dr. Yuri Mishasty, still dressed in his gown, told CNN.
"The water comes every hour, not regularly. There was no water over the weekend because there was a catastrophic bombing."
The 62-year-old surgeon has just finished operating on a woman who had been rushed in early in the afternoon.
"She is a resident of Bakhmut. She was hit by artillery and suffered a shrapnel wound to the abdomen with damage to various organs. We see people with these injuries every day. Every day."
Medics operate on a woman wounded by shrapnel at the Kostiantynivka hospital.
Credit: Peter Rudden/CNN
Surgeon Yuri Mishasty treats wounded civilians in nearby Bakhmut daily.
Credit: Jo Shelley/CNN
As the Russian army intensifies its campaign to take Bakhmut, shelling is closing in on Kostiantynivka, some 25 kilometers to the west.
Since the beginning of the month, the city has been attacked almost every day, says the hospital director.
Meanwhile, medical staff hear the constant noise of artillery being fired around Bakhmut, signs that another patient will soon be on the operating table.
"There's been a lot of noise lately," says Khassan El-Kafarna, a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) surgeon stationed at the hospital.
His colleague, nurse Lucia Marron, agrees.
"I think there's more movement in general: more troops, more people," she says.
"We're used to noise. You get to a point where you understand what's dangerous and what's not."
Ukraine works to repair its power grid, but Russian bombing could force more Ukrainians to flee
Local authorities have been imploring civilians to leave the region for months.
But for Tarasov, like so many others in Ukraine's former industrial heartland, fleeing his home to a safer area seemed impossible.
"If I had a lot of money, I would prefer to live abroad," says Tarasov.
"But I have no money and everything I had saved was invested there. I had no money and nowhere to go."
To stay in Bakhmut was to cling to what was left of the life she had worked so hard for in peacetime.
Now that life has been irrevocably changed.
A builder before the war came to Ukraine, Tarasov says: "I was right-handed. Now I won't even be able to wind a tape measure."
"I am half man, half zombie. Half human to be exact."
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