Placards on the train bluntly listed its purpose: “Evacuation.”

With hugs and teary goodbyes, families bundled children and the elderly aboard coaches at the central train station in the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk. They stood and waved through the windows as they departed.

With the Russian army at its doorstep and closing in quickly, Pokrovsk is a town bowing to reality. The police drive around with loudspeakers blaring instructions to leave now. Municipal workers have shipped out library books, elementary school desks and statues from parks and squares.

By late afternoon, with a curfew in effect, the streets were eerily deserted last week, except for military vehicles zipping about.

The Ukrainian military’s surprise attack into Russia last month came as one of Kyiv’s boldest gambles of the war, bringing swift gains in land and prisoners captured. But hundreds of miles away, inside Ukraine, the wholesale evacuation of Pokrovsk is evidence of the operation’s risks.