Ukraine's fortress cities under fire as Russia bids to seize rest of DonbasKramatorsk and Slovyansk are now the main focus of Russian ground assaults, and residents are being told to leave.8 hrs agoEurope

It is so dangerous now in Slovyansk and Kramatorsk that police say it is time for civilians to get out. These neighbouring cities are the biggest still under full Ukrainian control in the eastern Donbas region.

In the worst affected areas, forced evacuations of families with children have already begun, says Pavlo Dyachenko of Donetsk police.

“This is the only way to save your life,” he says, because security has deteriorated so much.

“If you take Slovyansk, it used to be hit by glide bombs roughly once a week, but now it’s almost every day.”

However, Kostyantynivka only has a limited presence of Ukrainian troops left, reports say, while Russia claims to be in full control of it.

The full capture of Donbas, made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, is a key objective for Russia. Moscow has often cited the “liberation” and “protection” of the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbas as justification for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian army already controls almost all of Luhansk region, and is now in control of almost 80% of Donetsk region too, where all three fortress cities lie.

For the past few months, the territory near Kramatorsk and Slovyansk has been the main focus of Russian ground assaults. Capturing them would potentially make it much easier for Russia to advance to the west.

The two cities are now facing intense strikes from drones and bombs.

Many civilians have already left, and key streets there are now covered with anti-drone nets, says Viktor Makurin, a volunteer from London.

“There are often [remote-controlled] FPV drones in the air, you can hear them through the window. Driving around the city is lethally dangerous. There are drones lying in ambush on the roads, too,” he told the BBC.

“You can always hear explosions in the background, plus there are mobile groups firing at drones.”

Over the summer, the number of civilians wounded by Russian attacks on the two cities increased from 70 in June to 212 in August, say Ukrainian police.

Sixteen people died in June, 20 in July and 15 in August.

Residential housing comes under attack as well as infrastructure, says Dyachenko, causing “very significant destruction”.

The number of glide bombs launched by Russia jumped from 40 in June to 109 in July and 92 in August, according to data published by Ukrainian police and studied by the BBC.

One morning two weeks ago, on 25 August, nine glide bombs targeted Kramatorsk. Seven hit civilian apartment blocks, wounding 24 people including a two-month-old baby, Ukrainian police say.

Two days later, it was hit again, this time with seven glide bombs, and five bombs targeted Slovyansk.

Fitted with winglets so they can glide to their target rather than fall, glide bombs are considered one of the most effective and lethal weapons in Russia’s arsenal.

Usually, they weigh 250 or 500 kg, but there have been cases of Russia deploying bombs that weigh 1,500 kg.

“The devastation they cause is simply incredible,” says Dyachenko.

“Glide bombs are the big fear,” another British volunteer, John Auckland Abbey, posted on social media.

“They are silent killers, and when you’ve been abruptly woken by one exploding, you know at least another one will follow. The question you ask yourself as you lie very still in the dark is: will the next one be closer?”

Kramatorsk is currently home to the headquarters of the Donetsk regional administration. The capital city used to be Donetsk, until it was captured in 2014 by Russian-backed separatists.

What happens to the areas of Donbas still under Ukrainian control was reportedly a key issue when US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last weekend after their talks with Putin.

In the past, Witkoff has appeared to back Russian claims to the region, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is refusing to pull troops out of it.

He says Putin has given his generals until the end of the year to complete their occupation of Donbas.

“Putin’s primary objective on the front line remains the same: Kostyantynivka-Slovyansk,” Zelensky told journalists last month.

Faced with mounting military pressure, the Ukrainian leader has created two new taskforces headed by experienced generals, Andriy Biletsky and Denys Prokopenko, to defend the portion of Donbas still in Ukrainian hands.

“There isn’t just a battle for Donbas there,” one unnamed Ukrainian general has said.

“What is probably the main battle of this year and the next is now unfolding.”