Humanitarian workers in Ukraine’s Donetsk region continue risking their lives to evacuate civilians trapped near the front lines.
Among them is Yevhen Tkachov, head of the Proliska Humanitarian Mission, who recently rescued an elderly man left alone after his wife was killed.
“We'll try to evacuate an old grandfather, who has frequent memory loss due to the war and concussion,” Tkachov told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service while driving through a drone-active combat zone.
The evacuee, Hennadiy Shchipakin, had lived in Kalynove with his wife. While others fled, they chose to stay -- until tragedy struck.
“A few days ago, his wife was blown up and died,” Tkachov said.
Shchipakin walked alone to the village of Zorya after burying her.
“On the outskirts of the village, there was a tripwire. My wife went around it, but a dog tripped it,” he explained. “She died after a couple of days. The wounds were small. It was either an infection or shock. I buried her somehow.”
With her gone, he became Kalynove’s last remaining resident.
“The village is ruined. On Podolskiy Street, a long street on the hill, everything was leveled. There's nothing,” he said.
In Zorya, Nataliya, a former neighbor, awaited him.
“We were friends. They were like parents to us,” she said, recalling how isolated the couple had been. “There was no phone connection, no one at all. He buried her in a shed. When the war ends, they will bury her properly.”
Shchipakin is now being taken by ambulance to Kyiv to reunite with his son, whom he has not spoken to in months due to communication blackouts. Their brief phone call was their first in a long time.
“Good, good. Let’s meet. We’ll figure it out,” his son told him.
For Shchipakin, the war has taken everything -- but he is no longer alone.
