‘People were burned alive in their cars’: As peace talks falter, Ukrainians resign themselves to fighting on

Medics treating a soldier at the stabilisation point of Ulf medical service of the Da Vinci Wolves battalion at the Pokrovsk front. Photograph: Julia Kochetova/The Observer

It is 11.20pm, and in an instant the emergency centre comes alive. Doctors and medics are conjured up from somewhere nearby to treat two wounded Ukrainian soldiers who have arrived together – one with serious shrapnel injuries to his right eye, the other who had a pile of bricks fall on his chest after a drone strike.

Yet it is the third, who arrives on a stretcher shortly after, who is the worst affected. The dark “panda eyes” signify a brain injury, while his back is also studded with bloody red wounds from drone or mortar fire. He has to be stabilised by half a dozen medics before being transported to a hospital in the rear.