'No life' Slow death of Kupiansk reflects fate of cities on frontline

Lyubov Lobunets, 77, left her home in the frontline Ukrainian city of Kupiansk in August when it was hit by a Russian explosive.

- Peter Beaumont

"I was in a five-storey building," she explained, speaking from a centre for the displaced in nearby Kharkiv. "I don't know whether it was a Russian missile or bomb that hit the building but it started a fire, and I couldn't escape."

The Ukrainian military, she said, saved her life. But by then much of Kupiansk, which had a prewar population of 27,000, had departed. Amid the focus on the Donbas region further south and its cities, including Pokrovsk, Kupiansk in the northern Kharkiv region on the Oskil River has drawn less attention. But the slow death of Kupiansk, dragged out over two years and more, is a metaphor for the cities of Ukraine's frontline, ground in the teeth of Russia's slow-moving combine of violence.

Gone is the small city centre market selling dried fish, honey and vegetables. Homes that dotted the hillside are wrecked by shells. The fields outside the city bordering the river are punctuated by craters.

Yet Lobunets explained her reluctance to evacuate. "I worked as a nurse and my pension is very small," she said. "I was afraid of where I'd live and how I'd manage."

Even until recently some of her friends had remained despite a compulsory evacuation order. Most who do remain in the city centre are clustered close to the stadium.

"Some friends rang to tell me they had climbed up to the top floor to get a mobile phone connection," said Lobunets. "They could see buildings everywhere that had been destroyed."