‘We gotta get out of here’: Pokrovsk residents flee strategic Ukrainian city

At the train station in Pokrovsk, Oleksandr helps his elderly mother with her bags as she boards a train leaving the Donbas city.

The miner from the nearby town of Myrnohrad has finally persuaded his mother to flee.

“I’ve got two sons. One wanted me to leave, the other didn’t,” explains his mother, Klavdiya. “Either they’ll come to me or I’ll come back to them. We’re not going to separate.”

Pokrovsk lies at an intersection of roads and a railway that makes it an important logistics point in the Donetsk region. Fighting has been raging for months close to Pokrovsk and villages nearby.

In downtown Pokrovsk, Ihor smokes a cigarette as he cycles through town. In his shorts and bright T-shirt, Ihor appears to be simply enjoying a sunny day. But the retired miner has a lot on his mind. “I’m leaving tomorrow or the day after,” he says. “It’s tough. It’s a hard decision to make. But my kid is 17, we gotta get out of here.”

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