Special Envoy to Chasiv Yar and Kostiantynivka
They may have been the last civilians to leave Bakhmut, on the night of 16-17 May, as Ukrainian soldiers continued to defend a residential bar and a handful of buildings on the edge of the city. "The army didn't really leave them a choice," smiled a volunteer who assisted in their evacuation, all fires extinguished under a deluge of Russian artillery.
A few hours later, upstairs in the Kostiantynivka hostel where they had placed their canvas bags filled with souvenirs and clothes, Oksana Dmitrieva and her daughters evoked this epilogue with an almost detached calm. Maria, 14, wears a pink and black plaid shirt and a red bandana in her blonde hair. Sofia, her eldest with her face carefully made up, donned black velvet pajamas. Two bulldogs snore peacefully on their knees.
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