It is better to look at Kramatorsk from the hill, where three giant wind turbines—electricity generators—stood out from afar. From there, it’s like a typical industrial panorama. But once you drive through the alleys and walk through the parks, you arrive at a neoclassical central square with columned buildings, a steep avenue, and endless flower beds. The Palace of Culture in the center of Kramatorsk has “Scooters or Death” written on it, but there are no teenagers.
Frontline towns
Text by Myroslav Laiuk and photos by Viacheslav Ratynskyi.
The Square
Night is falling, and the central square of the city, which is now home to about 50,000 people, is empty. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, an adult man flies out on a skateboard. He quickly rides around the perimeter and disappears behind the Palace of Culture. Then he makes a few more laps. At one point, he stops. It’s hard to tell whether he’s a soldier. He has long hair and is youthfully dressed.
36-year-old Serhiy, a native of the Luhansk region, indeed fights in the war. He currently lives near Kramatorsk, carrying out missions on the front line — it is already very close to the city. Before the full-scale invasion, Serhiy played the drums and made loft-style furniture. On Instagram, he posts a lot of music, contemporary art, irony, and sarcasm. He says he needs moral relief. He shows his car, parked near the square, with complex electronic warfare equipment that looks like a cupboard with old jars:
“You drive to the position, then from the position, it’s three hours ‘under the dome.’ And I started thinking that perhaps the electronic warfare equipment is what’s giving me migraines.”
There are a lot of cars with extra protection in the city, because something is constantly flying around. Locals count how many drones they have heard during the day. At the same time, there are a number of French- and English-style cafes. Some are wonderful, and others aren’t. For some reason, a lot of places serve sushi. The streets are cleaner than in Kyiv or even Kharkiv, and in the central park, which resembles a Japanese garden, soldiers are fishing on the bank of a stream. Small fish glitter in the water, and quite large ones dart around. And then something flies again.
Serhiy makes another circle under the air raid siren:
“I search for aesthetics. If you have one day off, it’s better to spend it beautifully.”
Nearby, there’s a statue of Taras Shevchenko next to broken lighting that flashes as though it’s a rave.
Everyone agrees that the situation in the city is worsening due to the increase in the number of enemy drones. After a while, Serhiy posts a video on Instagram showing one of the large windmills on the hill burning brightly after it was hit by a Russian drone. It seems to be spinning, but no — it’s just that the blades are burning and falling.
Taras Shevchenko
The great Ukrainian poet, artist, thinker, and public figure, who is considered one of the founders of modern Ukrainian literature and language. His most famous book is Kobzar. Shevchenko is a symbol of Ukrainian identity and a landmark figure in the national memory of Ukraine.
After the shift change
“They don’t care where they strike,” sighs rescue worker Oleksandr Chekmariov, referring to a recent attack on a civilian vehicle and recalling the damaged and destroyed schools, hospitals, and shops. He has many favorite places in his hometown, but he loves the nearby village with a pond and a river, the most, which is now “unreachable due to the situation.”
Oleksandr’s colleague, 27-year-old rescue worker Maksym Markiv, believes that since 2014, the city had improved, but now, again, something is being destroyed daily. And not only buildings — recently, during an attack, a colleague was injured and is now in intensive care.
Maksym was born in Kramatorsk and raised in an orphanage. When things got heated here in 2014 due to a surge of collaborators supported by Russia — “a lot of people in uniform, explosions, scary” — he evacuated to friends in Uzhhorod, from where he later returned to Kramatorsk.
Now, with a wife and daughter, he has also decided to evacuate them to the same city.
These rescue workers were at the sites of attacks that have been reported on by all international media.
Oleksandr recounts the horrific circumstances of the shelling of the Sapphire Hotel, which killed Reuters safety advisor Ryan Evans. His body was missing for several days. Maksym’s colleague Eduard Okarov recalls the day Russians hit the railway station with a missile — April 8, 2022. More than sixty people who were waiting to be evacuated were killed there:
The strike at the Kramatorsk station
On April 8, 2022, Russian troops fired a Tochka-U missile at people who were evacuating from the Donetsk region to safer cities in Ukraine. 61 people were killed. More than 120 were wounded.
For Eduard, it was one of his first shifts — he had just started the job. And there he was, sitting in his unit, when he heard the impact. Someone said it was the station. Their squad leader, who was in charge of the evacuation, was already there. When the rest of the rescuers arrived, they were shocked by what they saw.
“Blood, chaos, lots of screaming. We walked around and, to put it bluntly, we were walking over people. Some people were helping, some were carrying bodies out.”
Eduard says that at that moment he felt how much every person’s life in this war was hanging by a thread. And then he returned to his unit and realized how long it would take to wash up, how carefully he would have to scrub his hands and the crevices in the soles of his boots.
Eduard had people to support him. His parents used to live in two cities — Kryvyi Rih and Kramatorsk — but recently they have not been coming here because their son forbade them. Eduard does not allow his girlfriend, who lives in Dnipro, to come here.
“The train is leaving…”
Shortly after we left Kramatorsk, the station was closed. So it is a story about the recent past.
The Kramatorsk railway station is so crowded that it is difficult to pass without queuing at the door. Men with flowers are waiting for their wives. Grandmothers with handcarts are preparing to leave.
The Kramatorsk railway station
Passenger rail service to Kramatorsk has been temporarily suspended due to safety concerns. The station in Kramatorsk was very important because it was there that soldiers met with their families, who came closer to the front line for reunions.
Three women are sitting on a bench, two of them ready to talk. The third, wearing black glasses and a red jacket while carrying a cane, is going somewhere. Above them, the railway sign glows: “Kramatorsk — Kherson,” “Kramatorsk — Kyiv,” Kramatorsk — Lviv.” Their train is the second one, departing at 2:30 p.m.
The first is 80-year-old Nataliia, and the second is 67-year-old Valentyna. They are friends. After several shellings near their home, they finally decided to leave to be with relatives in Kyiv.
The loudspeaker announces their platform, and Nataliia and Valentyna get up, even though there is still plenty of time: the women need to drag their bags — they are leaving, perhaps forever.
Nataliia worked as a librarian.
“So what is your favorite book?”
“Taras Shevchenko.”
“Kobzar?”
“Kobzarcyk (diminutive for Kobzar — ed.), yes.”
Nataliia moved to this area of the region from Donetsk. She recounts how, in her youth, they would travel around here to visit friends or attend concerts—in Debaltseve, Bakhmut, and Kurakhove. Thus, the woman maps out a route that now has no practical significance, remaining in the distant past. She worked in Bakhmut and lived there with her daughter for some time. She liked it there — it was a “beautiful place.”
Valentyna admits that she couldn’t take her cat with her. She left Masia with her neighbors:
“Why?”
“He’s already too old.”
She calls Masia a Donetsk boy. Her daughter, who worked in Donetsk, evacuated with him in 2014. Valentyna also remembers how easy it was to get from here to cities that you can’t reach today.
The friends cross the tracks and wait on the platform. As soon as the train arrives, they rush to get on. Now they are behind the glass.
A Spanish kiss
One girl is sitting on the steps of the same train, while the other is standing, both wearing patches with Spanish flags. A tall black-haired guy is standing next to them, they are talking — laughing, gesturing a lot. “These must be Spanish journalists who have come to see their compatriot from the International Legion,” I thought.
And then the soldier bends down and kisses the journalist passionately. The other Spanish woman walks into the depths of the train.
They continue to laugh and stroke each other’s hands. The Spanish woman takes an interest in the people with PRESS on their vests, and we start talking.
The woman did indeed come here to do a report, but then she met this soldier. Everything happened so quickly and intensely that she is now going to Kyiv, but plans to return to Kramatorsk to base herself here. It would be interesting to find out which cities in Spain they are from. I think: “Madrid and Barcelona. Or no: Seville and Malaga.”
We’re all talking, asking him a few questions, and at some point, the journalist says:
“Aren’t you Ukrainians?”
“We’re Ukrainians, why?”
“Then why are you speaking to him in English?”
The soldier starts laughing. She starts laughing too, and in a moment, everyone is laughing.
In fact, the guy is a 25-year-old Ukrainian named Vitaliy.
They say goodbye again, and the train departs for the capital. In one of the carriages, the elderly woman we met earlier wave to us goodbye.
We go to a nearby cafe with Vitaliy. He tells us that they have been meeting with the journalist for a week. She came to their unit to conduct interviews.
“And then the brigade journalist writes to me that the journalist wants to meet…”
Gym, stadium, CrossFit
Vitaliy, a 33-year-old fighter from the KORD unit, jumps off the bar. He is currently serving in Kramatorsk, although he is not from here. He has a wife and son who sometimes come here, but not now.
He and his unit have gone through Toretsk, Kurakhove, Blahodatne, Staromayorske, and Urozhayne… but he talks most about Sudzha and Kursk. For example, how they were based in a restaurant there. The toilet was on the second floor, without water, of course. So, he says, they poured vodka, wine, beer into it… If the Russians had seen it, they would have had a heart attack.
Vitaliy believes that, despite the war, you have to be healthy. And also, you have to be an example for your son. For that reason:
— Gym, stadium, CrossFit.
Sudzha and the Kursk region
On August 6, 2024, the Armed Forces of Ukraine crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border near the city of Sudzha and, within a few days, controlled several hundred square kilometers. The operation lasted more than a year until Ukrainian troops withdrew from the captured territory.
Kramatorsk has everything you need.
— What do you think of Kramatorsk?
— It’s perfect. My wife, son, and I lived here together for six months last time, and I would live here. We’re almost like locals here; we say hi to our neighbors, and we’re here for the long haul. At the end, Vitaliy approaches the crossbar and takes off his T-shirt — he’s an athlete. He does a few tricks in front of the camera:
“What, did I train for nothing?!” he laughs.
Vitakha
We are supposed to meet with a soldier named Vitaliy Boyko nearby. We pull into the yard, but he is late. We sit down on a bench in the yard, next to which someone has laid out a rug — here under the trees, right outside.
Vitaliy finally arrives. He is a local and is currently defending his hometown. He says that although he was wounded twice, he refused to serve in the rear.
Vitaliy has been fighting since the war in the east of Ukraine (which began in 2014 — ed.). He clearly remembers how collaborators appeared here in 2014:
“They were walking down the center of the street, a bunch of people, soldiers. They were shouting, ‘Russia!'”
Some of Vitaliy’s acquaintances took part in the illegal referendums, some left for occupied territory, and some returned and became alcoholics.
We drive up to his old school. From a distance, it looks pretty good, but as soon as we pull up behind it and see the ruins. Some of it has already been cleaned up and dismantled, but some things are still lying on the ground — the “Nature Calendar,” other stands, equipment.
I ask about his callsign. He replies, after thinking for a moment: “I don’t know, just Vitakha.”
Vitakha approaches the parallel bars where he used to climb as a child and shows where he and his friends used to “smoke behind the corner.”
“There was a dining room here,” he says, looking around.”
He remembers the pasta and goulash.
“And here was a gym. It was so long.”
On the threshold of his native school, Vitaliy crouches down like a street kid.
And it seems that nothing has happened, that everything is as it once was.
Coat of arms
We are sitting in a cafe — and above the branches, above the buildings, an enemy drone flies by. Everyone looks up because it has already flown by here several times before. Then the drone explodes somewhere.
One passerby said that during the day she had already counted eighteen drones.
It hit the city council building. You go out into the square — your ears are filled with the creaking of glass being cleaned up, the banging of hammers smashing in broken windows, and the hum of machinery taking it all away.
Serhiy, a cleaner and tractor driver, points to the rubble around him: there aren’t enough utility workers — they’ve been taken to the front. He himself is retired, but he still works. Recently, his nephew, who was in the Armed Forces, was killed in action.
An explosion has destroyed the city’s coat of arms. Some of its pieces are in flower beds, on the roadway, and some have already been swept into a trailer.
