Kuba Stasiak, a young volunteer from Poland, has helped evacuate an estimated 200 Ukrainian civilians from Bakhmut and other besieged cities in Ukraine. But volunteers like him face psychological hurdles as well as practical ones: How do you convince someone it is time to leave everything behind?
In Bakhmut – as in Soledar and Avdiivka and the outlying villages of Ukraine’s beleaguered east – most residents have already left. But as the Russian offensive progresses and the Ukrainian army resists, individual volunteers have been driving to the “gray zones” of the war and the site of ongoing clashes.
