Ukrainians Prepare Counteroffensive Amid Bombings, Blockades

Understanding the conflict one year on.

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AVDIIVKA, Ukraine—The bombings pause in the besieged town, and 63-year-old Valeriy Melnyk heads outside to feed the pigeons. On a ledge, he uses his right hand to slice bread with a knife, steadying the stale loaf with what remains of his left arm, its stump covered by a woolen hat. What had been underneath was blown off by an artillery shell.

AVDIIVKA, Ukraine—The bombings pause in the besieged town, and 63-year-old Valeriy Melnyk heads outside to feed the pigeons. On a ledge, he uses his right hand to slice bread with a knife, steadying the stale loaf with what remains of his left arm, its stump covered by a woolen hat. What had been underneath was blown off by an artillery shell.

"People left, but pigeons stayed—they have to be fed," says Melnyk, a soft-spoken man in a flat cap and checked shirt. An occasional blast echoes through Avdiivka's empty streets. "They cheer your soul. You feed them—they feel good, you feel good."

Behind him, every window is shattered in his gray, eight-story tower block, entire apartments gouged out by airstrikes. "Everyone stays in their basements, but because it's quiet now"—a loud boom interrupts him—"they’ve gone outside to sit under the sun. It's springtime, and everything is blooming. Everything is beautiful."

Valeriy Melnyk, who lost part of his left arm in an artillery explosion, feeds pigeons outside his damaged apartment in Avdiivka on May 3.

Everything is destroyed, too. Russian blitzes have attempted to pound Avdiivka into submission over the past 15 months of all-out war, much as they have in Bakhmut, 40-odd miles to the northeast. Yet unable to storm Avdiivka—located just north of the city of Donetsk—with a frontal assault, protected as it is by concrete fortifications and long-established bunkers, the Russian army is trying to encircle the town with a creeping pincer movement, causing some of the hardest fighting along the front. Moscow's forces have so far cut off one of the two main supply roads and seized nearby villages, surrounding Avdiivka from three sides with new positions on its northern, eastern, and southern flanks.

An entire apartment block is caved in following Russian airstrikes in Avdiivka, photographed on May 3.

A Ukrainian flag flies from Avdiivka's only functioning hospital on May 4.

Ukrainian troops are battling to cling on to Avdiivka until their counteroffensive begins in earnest. Its fall could allow Moscow to reinforce assaults elsewhere, or suck in further Ukrainian reserves if the Russians continued to push forward. For Kyiv, maintaining Western confidence and support by fending off further incursions is key. In April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited soldiers in this focal point of Russia's eastern offensive and told them: "Our future depends on you."

The soldiers fight in the fields and industrial areas outside the town, but around 1,800 of the original 30,000 inhabitants remain inside. They have endured repeated airstrikes, shelling, and rocket attacks. For more than a year, these holdouts have mostly lived a subterranean existence, without heat, water, or electricity. Some support Ukraine. Others are waiting for Russia's "liberation" and falsely blame the Ukrainian army for the deadly hellfire that has battered this Ukrainian-held town since Russia launched its full-scale invasion last February.

A blood-spattered bicycle is seen outside Avdiivka's only functioning hospital after a man was wounded by shrapnel and cycled over for medical help on May 2.

Whatever their politics, they are in desperate need. And two local men risk death every day to keep the population alive by speeding in aid supplies in their battered, shrapnel-scarred van. These blockade runners, Ihor Pushkaryov and Oleksiy Savkevych, are defying the gauntlet of Russian bombardments to ensure Avdiivka's civilian holdouts are fed and watered amid the town's total ruination.

"Everything we do is for victory," says Pushkaryov, a brawny 29-year-old with an easy smile and infectious laugh. "Basically, we’re resisting."

Savkevych practices on his piano, which he salvaged from his family's damaged apartment in Avdiivka, on May 4.

Each day of siege-busting starts from an unlikely place. The pair stay in a ramshackle cottage lent to them by a friend, some 20 minutes outside Avdiivka. Barring the regular thud of heavy artillery, it feels more like somewhere 20 time zones away. Farmers till the surrounding fields by hand, frogs croak in a nearby pond, and finches dart between trees. Pushkaryov's adopted cat dozes in the sun, indifferent to the sudden, outgoing blast from a Ukrainian artillery position a few hundred feet away.

After a morning jog and round of pullups next to Pushkaryov's rifle, propped against the wall by their flip-flops, Savkevych practices on his piano, salvaged from his family's damaged apartment inside Avdiivka. He heads outside and prepares breakfast—cucumbers, tinned fish, jarred preserves, sugary coffee, and bars of chocolate. The pair share a joke and look out over the deceptively pastoral scene.

Savkevych does a round of pullups next to his friend Pushkaryov's rifle in their cottage outside Avdiivka on May 4.

"Ihor is very positive, joking every time, even in difficult situations," Savkevych says. "And this really helps to believe that we will survive."

Before the next aid run, they need to fix their van after its fan belt broke the previous evening. "It happened in the old part of town, the most dangerous part," Pushkaryov says. "Oleksiy dealt with it well, and now here we are."

It needs repairing practically every other day. The van was hardly a new vehicle when donated to them last summer, but it's now strained to breaking point by its added load of armor and a daily cargo of aid, stacked from floor to ceiling. "You might not think a loaf of bread is that heavy," Pushkaryov says. "But if there are a thousand loaves, then it's half a ton."

Once the van's fixed, Pushkaryov and Savkevych jump in and drive off. They are the last link in a chain of international aid that stretches back to Western Europe. Humanitarian supplies are hauled across Ukraine, then stored at a nondescript building just outside Avdiivka—the kind of place that hopefully won't attract the attention of a Russian artillery unit.

Pushkaryov loads Red Cross aid packages into his van with the help of a local woman near Avdiivka on May 3.

There, helped by a local mother and daughter, they load the van with around 200 Red Cross hygiene kits containing soap, washing powder, toothpaste, and other essentials, then set off towards Avdiivka. But on a dirt track outside the village, Savkevych takes a corner too early, and the overloaded van gets stuck in thick mud. Giving it the gas only wedges it in deeper. There is no cover in this open field, and a stray shell could land at any moment.

The pair flag down an army truck to tow them out, and within minutes, they’re back on the road. Ahead, a large column of black smoke rises from the latest rocket attack on Avdiivka's coke plant. This Soviet-era behemoth, owned by Ukraine's richest tycoon, used to provide the coal-based fuel to Mariupol's steelworks before that was captured by Russian forces last year. Located just a few miles north of Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, Avdiivka's plant has been hit repeatedly since war first broke out in the Donbas region nine years ago during Russia's covert invasion in 2014. Those attacks have only intensified since Moscow's all-out assault last year.

By now, the van is on the most dangerous stretch, a long, rutted patch of asphalt that is often shelled. From his driver's seat, Pushkaryov glances at the factory and the latest blaze from a Russian barrage. He used to work there, promoted into its human resources department thanks to his personable demeanor after operating its coke ovens, which hit 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit. "That was one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever done," he says, returning his eyes to the road.

A blue-and-yellow sign at the town's entrance reads "Avdiivka is Ukraine," with a mannequin of Vladimir Putin hanging from a noose, in Avdiivka on May 3.

He drives past the blue-and-yellow sign at the town's entrance—"Avdiivka is Ukraine"—a mannequin of Russian President Vladimir Putin hanging from a noose, and trees hit by fresh shelling. Through the dirty windshield, the disaster zone comes into focus.

Avdiivka's open-air market is a twisted mass of metal, destroyed by a Russian attack last October that killed seven people, scattering their bodies among the stalls. Stray dogs loiter in the charred ruins of Pushkaryov's old school, devastated by Grad rockets last summer. An entire four-story block has caved in from a Russian airstrike, destroying every apartment inside and leaving the bodies of its inhabitants to decompose beneath the rubble.

A damaged classroom is seen in the charred ruins of Pushkaryov's old school, devastated by rockets last summer, in Avdiivka on May 3.

Blast waves have blown out windows from every high-rise, huge holes punched through exterior walls as if smashed by a wrecking ball swung at random. Occasional figures are seen fleetingly in overgrown parks and yards. Otherwise, Avdiivka is a ghost town, branded by its mayor as "post-apocalyptic," though that prefix feels premature given Russia's ongoing blitz.

Pushkaryov's first job is to unload the aid from his van before the next bombardment. A group of police officers and local volunteers greet him and form a human chain, passing the crucial cargo from the vehicle and through the shattered window of a derelict building.

Among them is Oleh Sedun, a 50-year-old policeman deployed from his home in western Ukraine more than 600 miles away to help the people in this front-line town. Wearing full camouflage and black body armor, he has a friendly face and playful manner and is occasionally called on to help with evacuations and maintain order among the dwindling population. He's also become something of a therapist.

"People come and talk about their problems," he says, adding with a laugh: "It's like a psychologist's job." He continues, more seriously: "We all have to pay a price for our freedom, because freedom isn't easy. We have to fight for it."

An aid worker participates in a video call with relatives from inside Avdiivka's underground aid center on May 4.

The shelling picks up, and he heads into a basement where a team of local volunteers, led by Pushkaryov, run an underground aid hub. Avdiivka's shell-shocked residents have lived without basic utilities for more than a year, but thanks to a generator and one of the only functioning boilers in town, this subterranean sanctuary allows them to feel human again, if only for a few hours.

Down below, there are bowls of soup, cups of coffee, hot showers, and washing machines that never stop. Phones charge from rows of multiplugs, and a hairdresser offers shaves and trims. In a town where many harbor pro-Russian sympathies, there's also political capital to be gained here as Kyiv tries to win the loyalty of its eastern population.

A woman receives a haircut in Avdiivka's underground aid center on May 4.

"The main thing is that they don't feel abandoned to their fate by the state," says one of the volunteers, Lyudmila. Above her, metal struts run across the ceiling to strengthen it in case of a direct hit. But security here is an illusion.

"If there's a rocket or 500kg bomb, the crater will go down two stories deep," Pushkaryov explains. "There's nothing you can do."

A group of elderly women are given a hot meal in Avdiivka's underground aid center on May 4.

Despite its precarious situation, the aid hub is better than the basement that one mother and son have called home for the last year. A 10-minute walk away, in a dark, dank room beneath their block, the pair sit out Russian strikes surrounded by jars of preserves, icons of the Virgin Mary, and knickknacks from their damaged apartment.

"It's terrifying," says Lyuda, in her 60s. "A building collapsed on a woman. It's like a slag heap. Her body is still down there—nobody can get her out."

Starting again, though, is out of the question. "We don't have the money to leave," she says. "Our pension is small. We’ll be homeless in other cities. We’re basically homeless here, but at least we’re home."

It's people like her who draw Pushkaryov back into the siege day after day. Once the Red Cross hygiene kits are dropped off, he has some house-to-house deliveries to complete in Avdiivka's old town—a rustic jumble of cottages away from the devastated towers, but far closer to the Russian positions that ring the outskirts. On one dirt track, an elderly couple greet him with a hug and take several loaves of bread. The faint, menacing buzz of a drone is heard above.

The old man flicks his hand as if batting away a persistent fly. "Don't worry about that," he shrugs. "We hear those all the time."

The final stop is just a few streets away. The owner takes a sack of bread, and Pushkaryov tells her it's Savkevych's birthday. He's back at the aid center and she wants to send him a message, so with Pushkaryov filming on his phone, she says, smiling: "I wish you peaceful skies above your head and a stable ground beneath your feet. Peace, goodness, love, and whatever else you wish for."

Pushkaryov thanks her and walks back to the van. Suddenly, a stray bullet whizzes over his head. "Watch out," he shouts as he ducks, then starts laughing. "Let's get out of here quickly."

Pushkaryov and Savkevych change a punctured tire on their aid van after driving over a piece of shrapnel on an exposed stretch of road close to the embattled coke plant near Avdiivka on May 3.

On the other side of town, that swift exit is stymied after his van drives over a piece of shrapnel that punctures a tire, forcing Pushkaryov to stop on an exposed stretch of road close to the embattled coke plant.

"Formula One pit stop," he says, grinning as he cranks up the vehicle with a jack, hastily swaps the burst tire for a new one, then speeds away from the front.

Back at his cottage, he chops logs and prepares a fire. About half a mile away, smoke rises from an artillery explosion. Pushkaryov doesn't flinch and sets about barbecuing fish on the embers. But deep down, he knows the war is making its mark.

Pushkaryov rides in the back of the van, side door open, as the rolling fields of the Donbas pass by on May 3.

Pushkaryov chops logs at his cottage in the evening, occasional thuds of artillery heard in the distance, outside of Avdiivka on May 3.

"One of the consequences of being here is that dreams sometimes come to me," he says. "A disturbing dream, most of the time. I see a street in Avdiivka and realize that just on the next street, there are occupying soldiers. It's a sense of uncertainty and hopelessness."

Pushkaryov pauses. The sun has set, and the white arc of a missile salvo illuminates the distant, dark horizon. "And then you wake up, and everything is fine."

Jack Losh is a journalist, photographer, and filmmaker whose focus spans conflict, conservation, humanitarian issues, and traditional cultures. Twitter: @jacklosh

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