AVDIIVKA, Ukraine - When the shelling begins, the inhabitants of this eastern Ukrainian city hardly flinch.
In reality, the shelling barely stops.
Russian efforts to capture Avdiivka began more than a year ago and have intensified in recent weeks.
On Monday, as a Ukrainian police evacuation team went from cellar to cellar to try again to persuade people to leave, every minute or two there was the thud of artillery coming from the Russian forces, which on occasion they have parked no more than
1.5 km away.
Bakhmut, Ukraine, on Sunday.
Russian forces have fought for nine months to seize the city, advancing from three directions, but the Ukrainians have held the western side.
Photo Libkos/Associated Press
"Do you hear it? It's flying," a resident said as a rocket passed overhead.
"Then a bang is heard," he added when detonating.
Moscow's intensified shelling of Avdiivka and outlying towns is part of a broader offensive that has focused on the city of Bakhmut, some 34 miles to the northeast.
Although the latest Russian offensive has failed to capture
any
major cities, its attacks have continued to ravage parts of eastern Ukraine.
On Monday, the city's military administrator, Vitaliy Barabash, ordered the remaining civil servants to leave and barred journalists and aid workers from entering, citing security concerns.
A team of journalists from
The
New York Times
visited the city just before the ban was announced.
Avdiivka was once a dormitory neighborhood of Donetsk, the regional capital that fell to Russian-backed separatists in 2014.
This made
Avdiivka
a frontline city and one of the first targets when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, though the city has remained
in Ukrainian hands.
Now, out of a pre-war population of 30,000, residents say only hundreds still live in Avdiivka.
Ukrainian authorities said Monday that five children were left behind.
Damage from shelling and rocket fire has littered residential communities with rubble, making streets nearly
impassable
by car.
Schools, clinics, shopping centers and apartment blocks have been left riddled with holes.
Pieces of unexploded ordnance stick out in the streets.
Most of the remaining residents are middle-aged or older.
During the months of terror, they have taken up residence in the basements beneath Soviet-era apartment blocks, setting up beds, makeshift kitchens, bookshelves and small Orthodox shrines in large candlelit rooms.
Underground, the sound of artillery was barely audible.
Many occupants sat on their beds and stared into space.
With no electricity or running water, the cellars were dank and dark, and the air was stifling.
Still, it was safer underground.
A retiree said that she had not gone out for five months.
People have stayed for various reasons.
Some said they were too sick, others too attached to the life they once lived.
Others say they are
too poor
to move.
Some seemed too paralyzed after months of shelling to make the decision to flee.
"I have been living here for 43 years. How am I going to leave Avdiivka?" said Polina, an elderly resident, who came out of a basement to drop off cat food for a neighbor and check the damage in her apartment.
Like others interviewed for this article, he only gave his first name, fearing for his safety.
"I understand that the most important thing is to stay alive.
"But at my advanced age I don't want to go jumping from one department to another."
A few meters from his apartment, a building was still smoking after the recent impact of a rocket.
In a border region with strong ties to the former Soviet Union, loyalties are sometimes divided.
Two older residents appeared to support Russia and
blamed both sides
of the war for bombing their community.
Gennadiy Yudin, an officer with the Ukrainian medical police from Avdiivka, and another officer who came to evacuate the town on Monday were frequently turned away.
Many residents knew the agents from previous visits and were used to their attempts to persuade them.
A mother, Natalya, agreed to be evacuated with her 3-year-old daughter, Marina.
She was distraught as she packed her few belongings into plastic bags, partly because she said she had no money to start a new life.
Most of the time, when the agents approach, the residents scurry to their basements and slam the door.
c.2023 The New York Times Company
look also
War in Ukraine.
On the train with Volodimir Zelensky: "Any Russian victory could be dangerous"
Restoring a Giant Plane: Resilience or Ukrainian Folly?
