Communities in east Ukraine live every day at war

In the path of Russia’s invasion, the emptying communities in eastern Ukraine live every day at war. There’s the obvious conflict, with tanks and ambulances snaking along the patched two-lane roads of the Donetsk region and smoke rising beyond sunflower fields. And then there are the personal battles, the internal front lines. In one city, the mayor mentally prepares for the possibility of a military-ordered evacuation in which he would be among the last to leave.

On the morning of Day 142 of the war in Ukraine, the mayor of Pokrovsk, a community slipping closer to the front line, stands in sneakers and blazer near the newest soldier's grave.

A small group of people gathered at the funeral of 40-year-old Ukrainian serviceman Volodymyr Miroshnychenko. He was killed in recent fighting in Marinka, a town near Donetsk city. Only close relatives and fellow soldiers came to the cemetery.

As the frontline in Donbas moves closer to residential areas in Donetsk region, the Mayor of Pokrovsk Ruslan Trebushkin warned that civilians could face more humanitarian problems in the coming months.

"The biggest challenge is the upcoming evacuation because now we do not have gas and we know for sure that we won't have heating", explained the mayor, adding: "In one to two months water will run out from our reserves."

"Even if fighting stops where they are now and frontline doesn't move, it will be very hard to survive here in winter."

Vira Yefimenko, 72, who lives in a block house in the town of Selidove, knows about the upcoming humanitarian crisis on Donbas and is trying to prepare food reserves. She and other local residents stood in a huge queue for hours to get bags filled with humanitarian aid.

"If we won't have electricity, water and gas I don't know how we will survive," Yefimenko said.