The bridge over the railroad line northwest of Pokrovsk, on the road to Pavlohrad and Dnipro, was hit overnight. It is now closed to traffic. A few days after the departure of the last train, the bombing of the motorway bridge meant that residents fleeing Pokrovsk, by car or on the buses provided, had to take a rutted dirt road through clouds of dust.

In a country whose entire territory has been targeted by dozens of missiles, rockets and drones fired by its powerful Russian neighbor over the past two and a half years, the worst can happen when the artillery goes into action. It's a sign that the enemy is getting dangerously close. After cities where the Russian army has been routed (in the northern districts of Kyiv or Kharkiv) or conquered (from Mariupol to Sievierodonetsk, Lysychansk, Bakhmut or Avdiivka), it's Pokrovsk's turn to fear the fate that the artillery might inflict upon it.

"The enemy is 7 kilometers from Pokrovsk," said Vadym Filashkin, governor of the Donetsk region, on Monday, September 9. His services are coordinating civilian evacuations with the police, and he has ordered a strict curfew from 3 pm to 11 am, as in every town and village in the province within 10 kilometers of Russian forces.

As is often the case with officials in war-torn regions, who are keen not to reveal their place of work for security reasons, Governor Filashkin arranged a meeting in a park. On his return from a visit to the south of the region, where Moscow's army is stepping up its military offensive in an attempt to pincer Pokrovsk, he was that day in Kramatorsk, the "capital" of the Donbas not occupied by Russian forces.

With his military air and smiling eyes, Filashkin admitted to "a difficult situation," but asserted that the Ukrainian army is doing "everything possible to ensure that Pokrovsk does not fall." Contrary to the criticisms often heard from fighters about the fragility of defensive lines and the command's unpreparedness in the face of Russian offensives, the governor claimed that "civilian reinforcements have arrived from all over Ukraine to build defensive lines" in the rear, and to lend a hand to the soldiers who are building fortifications and digging trenches near the front lines. In Pokrovsk, this defensive effort is not yet perceptible, which is not to say that it is not real, away from the city.

The problem of rotation

For a town so close to the front line, and one which only a week ago seemed destined to become a fortified military camp, Ukrainian forces are still barely visible in the town. There are none of the firing positions and sandbags protecting basement entrances to command posts, camouflage-net-covered vehicles parked under trees or the usual influx of troops seen when the Russian army approaches. This does not mean that Ukrainian forces are preparing to abandon the town, but it does seem clear that they are currently fully mobilized on the front line.

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