INTERNATIONAL: Once a town of 20000 people, Popasna looked like a ghost town on Thursday (May 26) as few residents were still risking their lives daily under constant shelling.
Popasna resident, Natalia Kovalenko, had her apartment destroyed.
"We are tired of being scared, very tired. It's scary of course but not like before. We still hope for the better", she told Reuters.
Ukrainian troops retreated from the the town, located in the Luhansk region, on May 5.
Popasna Resident, Natalia Kovalenko, Saying:
"Two people back then were dead. They were setting outside to cook and a projectile came flying. Eight people were wounded at once. Someone was standing with a kettle, somebody was cooking for the neighbors and then eight got wounded."
POPASNA RESIDENT, NATALIA KOVALENKO, SAYING:
"I was sleeping here last night, I just have to fix the window somehow, the wind is still bad, cold at night."
Advancing Russian forces came closer to surrounding Ukrainian troops in the east, briefly seizing positions on the last highway out of a crucial pair of Ukrainian-held cities before being beaten back, a Ukrainian official said on Thursday.
Three months into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has abandoned its assault on the capital Kyiv and is trying to consolidate control of the industrial eastern Donbas region, where it has backed a separatist revolt since 2014.
Thousands of troops are attacking from three sides to try to encircle Ukrainian forces in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. If the two cities straddling the Siverskiy Donets river fall, nearly all of the Donbas province of Luhansk would be under Russian control as it happened with the town of Popasna recently taken by the pro-Russian troops.
Popasna Resident, Natalia Kovalenko, Saying:
"I've been staying here for three nights and again projectiles started coming our way. So I went back down there, but there is a dog there and cats and I said no, I can't do this anymore and this past night I spent here."
Popasna Resident, No Name Given, Saying:
"What if somebody could bring some medicine that would be so great. And bread. We got some water, but no bread. We ask for some from the soldiers and for smokes too."
