The safety situation in Kramatorsk and Slovyansk (Donetsk oblast) is growing worse by the day due to a spike in Russian FPV drone, artillery, missile, and guided aerial bomb strikes, Radio Liberty correspondent Serhiy Horbatenko (who lives and works in the area) told Valentyna Troyan, the Institute of Mass Information representative in Luhansk oblast.
Horbatenko said that moving through the two cities is becoming increasingly dangerous, as the Russian forces’ heavy use of FPV drones has turned the central districts of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk into “kill zones”.
“The streets of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk are practically deserted, which is especially glaring downtown. Among other things, they’ve been turned into fibre-optic drone kill zones in the Kramatorsk and Slovyansk centres,” the journalist said.
The drone strike threat means that vehicle traffic stops completely at nightfall. Moving between cities is also growing more difficult, as Russian forces are targeting transport and road infrastructure.
The journalist is no longer able to travel to Druzhkivka on his own due to the strike risk, and the town of Mykolaivka near Sloviynsk has become completely inaccessible for civilian and reporter cars alike.
“Given the safety situation, I now hesitate to move around certain neighbourhoods in Kramatorsk even in daylight. These are the neighbourhoods close to the combat area, where tube artillery shells land constantly… Journalists still come here, journalists understand the situation, and they realise that they might not even be able to get in on their next assignment, because the roads will have been cut off by drones, artillery, and so on,” Serhiy Horbatenko said.
Besides the safety factor, the work is also complicated by serious humanitarian issues: constant power outages, which occur over 10 times a day, as well as the lack of centralised drinking water supply. As the situation escalates and the front line draws nearer, shops, food outlets, and service facilities across the cities are shutting down en masse.
Previously, IMI reported that the growing threat of Russian FPV drone strikes in Kharkiv forces journalists to radically rethink their work procedures. They use drone detectors, body armour, new safety protocols, and avoid stopping for gas.