Municipal workers in the Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, on the front lines in the Donetsk region, in the east of the country evacuated before the announced advance of Russian troopsa military official announced Monday.

“Avdiivka looks more and more like a place from post-apocalyptic movies. So, the difficult decision was made to (…) evacuate the municipal workerswho at least tried to maintain the cleanliness and vitality of the city,” the head of the local military administration, Vitaliy Barabash, said on social media.

Barabash strongly recommended leaving the citysince “Russian rockets and shells spare nothing and no one”.

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Russian troops have been trying to take the city for monthslocated at the front since 2014, when the war began between Ukrainian troops and Kremlin-led separatist forces.

Although it is only 13 kilometers from Donetsk, the capital of the region of the same name, under Russian control, Avdiivka then had 30,000 inhabitants the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Riddled by artillery and, more recently, by aviation, only about 2,400 residents are currently resisting it, nearly 2,000 of whom are receiving humanitarian aid, Barabash recently told AFP.

The city is one of the two most complex battlefields on the front, along with that of Bakhmut, 60 kilometers further north.

The Russians cut off one of the two main access roads to the city in June and they positioned themselves to the east and south. In recent months they have advanced and taken cities in the southwest and north, as if to trap Avdiivka for not being able to take it head-on.