«The bodies had been lying in the car for a week; a drone caught up with them during the evacuation»: what’s happening in the frontline city of Druzhkivka, where people drive over 100 km/h just to survive

Crashing into a concrete block left over from a former checkpoint at a speed of 140 km/h is guaranteed to be painful, even fatal. Heart skips a beat as the soldier «Mechanic» swerves the wheel to the left just one meter away from a pile of burnt-out scrap metal. It was once a car heading toward the frontline town of Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region, but a russian drone caught up with it. There are over 30 such cars along the highway: all burned out; in some cases, the russians «finished them off» with several drones when they saw that someone had survived.

Together with the defenders, we’re heading to the frontline town of Druzhkivka, located 8 km from the front line in eastern Ukraine. A soldier with the call sign «Mechanic» says we have almost no chance of survival: first, because of the speed that would get you your driver’s license revoked in peaceful cities. Second, because of the waiting drones on the highway. In some places, they block the road: they land between two burned-out cars so that the driver has to choose for himself how to die—either from a drone that will blow him up or in a car accident on a road riddled with gunfire.

The soldiers say with a smile that they’re good drivers, but you have to hold on tight. It becomes clear why within half a minute: once the car pulls onto the highway, the speed doesn’t drop below 130 km/h. The turns are accompanied by the screech of tires and the smell of burning rubber—the tires are clearly not designed for this kind of driving, but they hold up.

The twisty route looks terrifying when viewed from a straight-line perspective: dozens of cars are «disassembled», with half a car lying in the middle of the road and the other half having been flung several meters away. The screech of tires is accompanied by the maneuvering of robots delivering packages along the highway. Detectors pick up on drones, so the likelihood that a robot will reach its destination is very low. As proof of this, a few meters away, beneath a torn-down fence, a delivery platform is already burning out.

Half a minute later, we have to jerk the steering wheel sharply to the left and right, barely making the turns. We’re being tossed around in the car, but no one complains: it’s a matter of life and death to weave between the burned-out cars and the ground robots. And the last few meters before the checkpoint—between five burned-out pickup trucks, one of which is still smoldering.

When going around corners, you have to hold on to the car with all your limbs

Approaching the former checkpoint, any cautious driver would slow down: the reinforced concrete barrier on the road looks ominous, especially when approaching at 140 kilometers per hour. «Mechanic» warns us: he won’t brake, because it’s the perfect spot for a drone ambush. So it feels as though our car is flying between the checkpoint and the burned-out vehicle. We all bang our helmets against the roof at the same time. A few seconds later—a second and third time: we have to swerve sharply to avoid the burned-out cars and potholes caused by the explosions.

When the car reaches our drop-off point, «Mechanic» warns us: we must jump out of the car only on his command and run immediately to the nearest basement or an open house with a roof overhead. If he doesn’t give the go-ahead to open the doors, we won’t be able to get out, because we’ll have to flee from the drone in the car.

In any case, there must be a readiness to jump out of the car in a split second. A few seconds later, the car turns into a side street with a screech of tires, slams on the brakes, and the soldier tells us to run.

The city is smouldering and exploding every minute

With the first steps through the frontline town of Druzhkivka, it’s very noisy: a drone is buzzing overhead. A few seconds later, we hear it going in for an attack, and then something explodes nearby. The road between the buildings forces to run across it: the trees don’t shield our group from the russian UAVs, and there are more of them with every passing minute.

It feels as if they’re looking for us, so at moments like this we all fall silent and look up—the journalists and the soldier. This action creates a false sense of control over the situation, given that we’re standing under the canopy of a tree with no cover around us. The closest shelter is the entrance to a building that’s already been hit by a missile. And if we run toward it, the risk of being spotted becomes virtually certain—and something we definitely want to avoid. As the drone’s buzzing fades into the distance, we continue walking past buildings with no glass in their windows. All the high-rises and apartment buildings in Druzhkivka lost their windows several months ago: first because of drone attacks, and later, russian СABs finished the job.

As we reach one of the outermost streets, a series of explosions rings out. Right before our eyes, the russians have once again shelled a residential neighborhood. Soldier Konstantin Melnikov sums it up succinctly: «Cosetki» (cluster bombs).

Smoke is rising from the direction where the sound came from. In a few minutes, one of the buildings will catch fire. There is nothing left to do but hope that there were no people in that residential area. Because neither medical personnel nor firefighters can get into Druzhkivka anymore.

As has become customary in this city, burned-out vehicles line the road: an armored personnel carrier, a pickup truck, four ground drones, and two cars. A few more civilian cars are scattered along the road—they likely flew apart the moment the drone «took them apart.»

«Just last week, there were civilian bodies lying there. They were on their way to be evacuated when the russians decided to kill them. We couldn’t retrieve the bodies right away because there are either „waiters“ sitting or drones hovering overhead. The curve and obstacles on the road make it easy for them to hit their targets, since drivers have to slow down to navigate the turn. There was a body there,» says the spokesperson for the 24th Mechanized Brigade, pointing to a pile of burnt metal standing out in the open.

To check whether any bodies are still in the car, you have to run across the road, which isn’t shielded by anything. They didn’t have time to put up the netting here, and besides, it wouldn’t have protected them from the russian drones anyway.

The bodies are no longer in the car. Presumably, they were buried either by locals or by our military in one of the nearby yards. This postmortem scenario has brought many residents of Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka together in recent months. The russians won’t let them evacuate, and it’s impossible to bury someone under these conditions.

A rug hangs from the wall on the eighth floor, having miraculously survived the collapse. It’s especially eerie to look at it while standing on the ninth floor: beneath your feet lies an abyss—of which there are dozens throughout Druzhkivka. And in nearly every one, a human life was lost—those who had hoped to survive the russian invasion within the walls of their own homes.

At that moment, a drone flies past the windows of the high-rise building. Judging by the sound, it’s flying lower than where we’re standing. We hear gunshots, and soldier Konstantin Melnikov loads his shotgun just in case he has to shoot down the UAV. A few seconds later, the drone flies just as low, continuing on toward the neighboring building. As for us, to avoid the risk of a free fall from the ninth floor, we head down to the lower floors—to the level of construction debris that used to be apartments.

The occupiers have already shot through the spine of «The Lover» in the center of Druzhkivka

Running between buildings toward the city center is full of adrenaline and drones. You have to hide under building entrances, near basements (in case you have to flee into them), or under the canopy of trees. In the heat—over 33 °C—they're the only thing that saves you.

Just like the fruit growing along the roadside. Our lunch in this town near the front lines consists of what the townspeople planted back in the prewar days: grapes, apples, and pears. We snack as we make our way between the houses toward the town center.

«It's really delicious. Apples with no GMOs or chemicals—just gunpowder and dust,» — smiles journalist Oleg Kornienko, who also came along for a «stroll» through Druzhkivka.

Drones continue to buzz overhead. The city is getting noisy: the closer you get to the center of Druzhkivka, the more UAVs are hunting down people and vehicles.

Under these circumstances, the sculpture of lovers in the center of Druzhkivka evokes more sadness than faith and hope, as it did a year ago. It is especially heartbreaking when we get close to the female figure: there is a hole in her spine caused by shrapnel. War is merciless even to wrought metal that is not even ten years old.

As if to mock the civilians, blue signs on buildings reading «Safe House» are constantly in view. We have to run past them, fleeing from drones that fly by or hover overhead. Not far from one such high-rise is a fresh grave. It’s unknown who is buried here, and there are hundreds of such unmarked graves throughout Druzhkivka. Some have become «mass graves,» since there is neither the time, nor the means, nor the strength to dig inpidual graves. Moreover, drones targeted civilians as they dug graves for their deceased neighbors. So now, the flower beds beneath the apartment windows have become makeshift cemeteries.

As we leave Druzhkivka, it sees us off with a new series of explosions. The occupiers got down to business with the city: it opens a «gateway» for them to Kramatorsk, which they are not able to capture. However, the russians are sure to destroy it with artillery and an even more intense barrage of drones if they push back our defensive line in the city.