Volunteers Defy Drone Dangers to Evacuate People from Kramatorsk
By Brian Dooley.
Kramatorsk, Ukraine – Today, I joined evacuation volunteer Julia Nezlamna and others to get people from the frontline Ukrainian cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Russian troops are advancing on Kramatorsk from three sides and are within about seven miles to the east. Many civilians here want to leave, and rescuing them often falls to local volunteers from cities such as Kharkiv.
I’ve worked with Julia before, in Kupiansk, in May last year.
That day we evacuated six people with Oleg Chopenko from the Roza na Ruke evacuation team, who is with us again today, and with Slava Ilchenko. But Slava is not with us today. He was killed evacuating civilians on December 25, 2025, and his loss is very hard on the volunteers who knew him, especially Julia. They worked as a team for many months, and between them evacuated thousands of people from the front line.
Today, Julia and I left Kharkiv at 5.20am and drove east into the sunrise and towards the frontline. The last stubborn patches of snow peppering the fields will soon surrender to the springtime sun, and the day is warm and bright. But clear skies are good for drone operators, and the safest weather for evacuating people is in cloudy, blustery rain. We regularly checked the drone detector – a handheld device a bit smaller than an iPad, with antennae that scan the skies and warn of drones.
When you’re going to very dangerous places on Ukraine’s front line, you drive through miles of tunnels of anti-drone nets, pinned up between wooden poles alongside the road. They’re generally green or white and provide a protective roof over the cars, too. The drone detector and the nets offer some solace of protection.
Fisherfolk from across Europe have donated hundreds of tons of old nets to help protect Ukraine. The nets are stretched across and over roads and bridges around cities, such as here in Kramatorsk, to snarl up Russia’s attack drones.
Some are made locally, while hundreds of tons of these old fishing nets have been donated from France, Denmark, and Sweden.
The mesh is loose, big enough to put your hand through, but still small enough to stop drones. The nets are part of an international humanitarian support effort helping with evacuations and other aid.
Along the front line, you also see an assortment of vehicles donated from other countries to bring food and medicine to people. Today, there was a truck from the Netherlands, a van from Poland, and various family cars from Britain. Our team today had two cars and three ambulances. One of the ambulances is from Italy, as is another of the activists, Sara Uboldi. But it’s experienced locals such as Julia who lead these evacuation efforts.
Julia said she is now evacuating people virtually every day along the front line, partly because there are fewer people able to do this work. A Russian drone killed two police officers evacuating civilians from Kupiansk three weeks ago. “We are losing more volunteers now,” she said as we passed through ruins in the city of Izyum, with many of its streets destroyed in heavy bombardments.
As ever, this dangerous evacuation work depends on determination, improvisation, good planning, and good luck. The activists know that at the start of every trip, they might not come back.
Today, we got a total of eleven people from Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, including several children and a five-month-old baby, and took them away from the front line. When we arrived, the people were packed and ready to leave. We quickly loaded them and their belongings – including two cats – into the vehicles with the constant sound of shelling and explosions around us. Four days ago, Russian forces bombed Sloviansk, killing four people, and the next day dropped four huge 250-kilogram (550-pound) bombs on the center of Kramatorsk, killing another man.
Julia and the others are experienced and skilled at evacuating people quickly, saving lives every day. But resources for this work are scarce, and one of the ambulances in our fleet broke down a couple of times in the afternoon and needs to be push-started. On the way back in the evening, it had a flat tire and no spare.
The activists face these sorts of problems all the time, but despite the vehicle breakdowns, the physical and emotional stress, and the lethal danger, they will be back again this week to rescue more people from the front line.
