The last days of a Ukrainian ghost town within Russia's grasp

POKROVSK, Ukraine — The pack of stray dogs -- thin and rain-soaked -- yelped in fear at the roar of incoming Russian artillery fire that echoed off abandoned Soviet-era buildings and an Orthodox church in frontline Pokrovsk.

They bustled into a bare grocery store in the eastern Ukrainian town, where the once distant and dull thuds of fighting have grown deafening and deadly as Russian forces have advanced to its gates over recent months.

But the gaggle of elderly bystanders, sweeping the deserted street or sitting at a long-obsolete bus stop, barely flinched at the display of Russian firepower.

"That's nothing special," 51-year-old shop owner Svitlana said dismissively as another barrage thundered into the town.

What shocked her more was the speed of Moscow's advance and the likelihood its forces would soon be roaming the town where she was born and then raised her own family.

"We thought we would be protected. I thought there would be an actual battle to defend Pokrovsk. I did not expect this, I did not expect it," she told AFP, exacerbated.

Incoming artillery

The looming fall of the vital rail and mining hub would represent the most significant blow for Ukraine in nearly one year of accumulating military and political setbacks.

But it has been coming.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky conceded as early as July that his army lacked manpower and firepower to hold back what is now the fastest Russian offensive in more than two years.

Some of President Vladimir Putin's initial war aims have faded since he launched the invasion in February 2022, but there is no doubt his army wants the wider Donetsk region and in particular Pokrovsk -- or at least what's left of it.

Over several trips, AFP journalists saw collapsed bridges and snow-blanketed skeletons of buildings that revealed the extent of Russia's months-long bombing campaign there.

The train station where residents once gathered to flee is abandoned and boarded up.

Banks shuttered in September. Gas supplies cut off last week and Pokrovsk's mining facilities vital to Ukraine's once-proud steel industry have begun shuttering.

Staff at the local university -- already relocated from Donetsk city after Kremlin-backed separatists rose up in 2014 -- are planning to move again, this time to Lviv in the west.

'It was the end'

The main building is now a bombed-out shell.

Olga Bogomaz, an associate professor, was last there on August 20, one day after she said it was hit.

"I'll always remember that day. I understood then that it was the end," she said.

Bogomaz, who witnessed the Moscow-backed separatist's uprising a decade ago, told AFP she felt "pain" and "anger" seeing the fresh destruction.

"They didn't just destroy the building. They destroyed its history, and the hopes of teachers and students they could return," she said.

Ukraine's top commander Oleksandr Syrsky last week described the fight for Pokrovsk as "especially fierce" and called for "unconventional" strategic decisions to keep Ukraine's flag flying over it.

For some pundits, the city is already lost and the blame game has begun: out of touch generals, late drone deliveries, systemic problems with defence lines.

"Everyone has already accepted the [Russians] will enter Pokrovsk," one Ukrainian serviceman told his 200,000 social media followers.

In a wind-whipped forest grove outside Pokrovsk, a tank operator whose German Leopard battle tank has been struck several times by small Russian drones, had a similar assessment.

His task within the 68th brigade has been to rain down fire on the small groups of Russian infantry as they race forward, dig in, then advance again.

The tactic is costly -- Syrsky claims 400 Russian troops killed or wounded per day -- but police in Pokrvosk told AFP it had enabled Russian infantry to advance up to two kilometres  from the city's outskirts.

'Street battles soon'

"They dart around like flies, in swarms. There will be street battles in Pokrovsk soon," said the 34-year-old tank crew member, who identified himself by his military nickname, Gypsy.

Despite the growing consensus that time is running out, there are still more than 10,000 civilians in Pokrovsk, which around 60,000 people once called home, city officials told AFP.

Old billboards urging civilians to evacuate hang around the city.

On Saturday, 21-year-old student Anna and her mother finally heeded those calls.

Having assembled just six bags from a lifetime of possessions, they were moving to Kyiv -- a city where Anna had never been and knew no one.

The armoured van taking them away had been hit by drones twice during previous evacuations, the driver told AFP.

A wide-eyed woman who passed the evacuation meeting point while seeking drinking water, over the sound of incoming rocket fire, she asked if she could flee too.

"Some people leave only at the last possible moment. It's cold in the apartment. Everything is falling to pieces. It's misery," said Anna, who declined to give her last name.

She said she would miss her home, but hoped she could return -- under one condition.

"If the town is still part of Ukraine," she said, moments before clambering into the van with her most prized belongings.