The city of Kupiansk  in northeastern Ukraine has been closed off since the end of September; no one can enter or leave — not even aid workers. There are now Russian soldiers stationed there.

Seventy-five-year-old Valentyna left behind a home on the northern outskirts of Kupiansk. Another resident helped her reach the village of Shevchenkove to the west. From there, she was taken on to Kharkiv by volunteers. DW met her there at a transit center for internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Valentyna said she decided to leave her home after two soldiers from Russia entered her garden looking for their comrades. and one of them threatened her with a grenade. "You could see that this Russian was very drunk," she said. "He asked where the Ukrainian soldiers were. I said: ‘There aren't any or yours — or ours. Only old people live here.'"

She said there had been problems with water, gas and electricity for four months and all the stores were closed. "The shelling is terrible," she said. "Everything has been destroyed. Everything is black and burnt." She said she regularly saw drones. "When they spot someone, they hover in place and then swoop down on them," she said. "Many people are dying."

Now, she is living with hundreds of other IDPs in a hostel and she misses her home. "People like us hold onto their own homes, yards and gardens," she said. "The harvest was good this year. I put everything in the cellar and locked it away. But will it remain intact? That's the question." 

'State of war'

According to the Relief Coordination Center, the number of evacuation requests from Kupiansk has risen since September — with about 100 coming in daily now. "Unfortunately many people wait until the last minute, so there are also more and more requests that we cannot process," said Bohdan Yakhno, the NGO's director for the Kharkiv region. "And, when people try to make their own way, they might be attacked by drones."

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), there are about 3.8 million IDPs in Ukraine. National authorities put the figure at 4.6 million. Ever since Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the start of hostilities in the east of Ukraine, Ukrainians have been fleeing to safer parts of their country. At the moment, many of the IDPs are pensioners who cannot afford to rent apartments, so they live in hostels, where accommodation is free. Many of them need support with their everyday lives such as assistance with paperwork or transportation to health care.

They are entitled to help from the government, which will in theory designate a social worker if they can prove that they are single and provide the right documents — but this is not always the case. "The state cannot cover the demand," said Elvira Seidova-Bohoslovska, a project manager at the RCC. "The state is in a state of war."

The international humanitarian aid organization Help-Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe provides funds to finance social workers in the hostels — "so that these people feel cared for and loved," Seidova-Bohoslovska said. "The social workers help them to overcome trauma. And that's important."

Longing for home

DW met the social worker Viktoria on a gloomy day in the Kharkiv hostel. There was laundry drying on the balconies and the smell of meat in the kitchen as she made borscht for a seriously injured man from the region. Despite having been busy since the morning, doing shopping and the laundry, she told DW that she loves her job. "I know that these people have nobody to help them," she said. And she is one of just two people allocated to 10 elderly women. 

Even during her time off, she helps others in the hostel. For instance, she visits Mykola, an 88-year-old man who sees and hears badly. She likes listening to his stories, and he appreciates her attention.

Mykola is from Velyka Shapkivka, a village north of Kupiansk, and said he used to walk to the city to visit his 65-year-old son. "Suddenly there was a drone chasing me," he said. "I spread my arms and said: 'Go ahead and shoot!' But it turned around, destroyed a building and a farm. I was spared."

In August, Mykola was admitted to a hospital in Chuhuiv as there were no more functioning hospitals in Kupiansk. It was too dangerous to take him home when he was discharged so volunteers brought him to a hostel in Kharkiv. "At first, they didn't tell me the truth," he said. "I'm not angry with them," he said. "They only wanted what was best for me." But he decided to take a bus back to Kupiansk. He walked to his village to get some clothes. "I packed my bag full with two jackets, shirts, pants," he said, "as much as I could — and a backpack." He injured himself when he got entangled in some barbed wire. And then he came back.

Mykola is currently living alone in one room, but he has a second bed that he is keeping for his son, who is still in Kupiansk. They've not been in touch for a month, so Mykola is desperate to go back but Viktoria has forbidden him from doing so.

"Now there are 6-meter-high (20-foot) posts and anti-drone nets stretched across the road," he said. "They call it the ‘road of life.' You have to take that path — there's no other."

Mykola fought back tears. "I want to go there," he said. "And if I get killed, then so be it."

This article was originally published in Ukrainian.