It had been dubbed "the road of life:" a cordon of asphalt battered by Russian shelling, bordered by a tall row of trees. It was the last link between Avdiivka, on the eastern Ukrainian front, and the rest of the world. You had to pass an equestrian center, bombed at the start of the invasion in February 2022, where wounded horses had been dying for days. Then, just before arriving, there was a straight stretch, totally exposed, right in the enemy's line of sight. Drivers accelerated hard to get through and Ukrainian humanitarian convoys somehow always managed to deliver supplies.

As recently as this summer, when a distribution of food was announced, residents would emerge from basements, cellars and rubble, from all the unsuspected hiding places of a city in ruins, "each one sticking his head out of his hole, living the life of a beast," according to a schoolteacher. They would greet each other with a mocking: "So, you're still alive?" To tell the truth, Avdiivka has long kept its sense of humor," said Vitalii Barabash, governor of the local military administration, even if it's hard to imagine now.

Those who had stayed felt immortal. The fighting has been going on here since 2014, the start of the war in Donbas. But now, the jokes have stopped. "Nobody dares to claim anymore that we will survive," Governor Barabash continued. Moscow's troops recently launched their third wave of assaults on Avdiivka since October 10, and the "road of life" is now called the "road of death." Civilians and soldiers alike, the Russians shoot at anything that moves. A van carrying bread was hit in mid-October.

Once again, a city reduced to ashes has become the focus of a merciless battle. Russia's renewed onslaught is "a sobering reminder that President Putin has not given up his aspirations to take all of Ukraine," said John Kirby, spokesman for the White House Security Council, at the end of October. For the Kremlin, Avdiivka would have symbolic importance in the run-up to the Russian presidential election in March 2024.

The number of inhabitants had fallen from 30,000 before the war to around 1,600 after the Russian invasion in February 2022. The number has now dwindled to just a few hundred, following further departures in recent weeks. As winter approached, everyone started lighting stoves, causing smoke that was immediately spotted by Russian reconnaissance drones. These places were then targeted by artillery "in a very precise way," said Barabash.

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