Kharkiv Activists Evacuate Civilians from Front Line Despite Drone Dangers
By Brian Dooley
This week saw my 20th trip to the eastern front of the war on Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. I again joined local volunteers from the Kharkiv-based Roza na Ruke team to evacuate civilians from the frontline city of Kupiansk, which is now an active war zone. The work of these and other volunteers is extraordinary.
Because a lot of people now want to be evacuated from Kupiansk, on one of the days we evacuated people we took two vans and two cars. Kupiansk is about a 90-minute drive east from where our evacuation team is based in Kharkiv city.
Despite wearing protective gear, the feeling of driving into places like Kupiank is always the same—total exposure. You’re vulnerable, visible, and horribly aware that a missile could strike you at any moment.
We parked the vans under trees at the edge of the city to avoid drones, which are a constant threat—especially on bright, clear days like the ones we had. Clear skies are ideal for drone operators, but dangerous for anyone like us trying to stay unseen.
From there, we drove the cars in as quickly as possible, picking people up in twos and threes from their homes. Each car uses two drivers in case one of us is injured in a missile strike.
Kupiansk is a war zone. Virtually no building is left undamaged; many are entirely destroyed and I didn’t see any windows still intact in the whole city. The Russian army is already dug in on the far side of the city, and advancing steadily.
Most of the people still living in Kupiansk are elderly. Some have stayed because they can’t imagine leaving the homes where they’ve lived their whole lives. Many rely on walking sticks or wheelchairs, and the idea of starting over somewhere else in the country is overwhelming, even with the reality of missile strikes and shelling all around them.
Driving through the city means moving at top speed, swerving constantly to avoid burned-out vehicles and missile craters. Smoke plumes rise in every direction, and the thumps and cracks of shelling are nonstop.
We take turns in driving to divide the risk and share the stress. On this day, the first team into the city was attacked by a Russian drone. It missed one of the cars by a few feet, blowing out the back window and cracking the windshield, but miraculously no-one was hurt.
Once we head in, there’s no phone signal, no way to communicate with the team waiting by the vans. They stare at their watches nervously until we return.
If everyone waiting to be picked up is ready, the trip in and out should take about 30 minutes. But when the clock reaches 45 minutes, the tension sets in. One run took over an hour because the team had to stop and take cover from drones.
We don’t need reminders of how dangerous this work is. In October, our colleague Tigran Galustyan was killed in a drone attack while driving into a village to evacuate civilians.
We continued the shuttle runs for hours—carrying people, often with their pets, back to the vans at the city’s edge. By the end of the day, we had taken 20 people, four dogs, and four cats the 75 miles back to Kharkiv.
Once in the city, we brought them to a reception center where they received food, medicine, cash assistance, and shelter if they had nowhere else to go.
These local volunteers are literally saving lives all along the front line of the war. The stress on them is enormous, but they make this choice day after day, to help others despite the enormous danger to themselves. This war seems relentless, but when it is over and its history written, the sacrifice of these volunteers must not be forgotten.
