As Russian troops closed in on Bakhmut, saving citizens from the besieged Ukrainian city became a deadly gamble.
Those who came to their rescue said often their success and survival was simply "a miracle".
One of the young men who risks death to bring people to safety is 21-year-old Svyat, who only wants to be known by his nickname for fear of becoming a target for Russians.
"You can not only hear the explosions constantly, but they fall all around you," he told the ABC from outside an evacuation centre at the conclusion of another mission into Bakhmut.
For months, Moscow has been trying to capture the city in the country's eastern Donetsk region, an effort which has seen it come under almost constant fire.
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian army says the "most prepared assault units" from Russia's Wagner mercenary group were being sent into the city, making it increasingly difficult to defend.
The town has been turned into a living hell, the death and devastation are widespread, and Syvat says the missions to save those still left are not easy.
"Recently a big rocket fell just 50 metres from us," he says.
"It was a miracle, we just walked away from that very spot a minute earlier."
About a dozen weary faces pile out of his mini-bus, which is heavily dented and still covered in a blanket of grey mud, the red cross plastered on the front and back only just visible.
Svyat's own khaki uniform is somehow clean except for thick mud caked around his winter boots, the only sign of his dangerous morning work.
"It can be very difficult sometimes, we can be caught in flying shrapnel, we need to go to remote areas … and Russians drones are there flying over us, publishing our location," he says.
"A lot of the people are injured, we need to walk a long way into remote areas and carry their bag, help them into the vehicle."
He relays the details of his daring rescues in a matter-of-fact tone. It has become his daily routine, but he knows he's lucky to be alive.
He's seen friends and colleagues injured and killed during these missions. On his uniform is a badge with his name and blood type just in case of emergency.
The people he has helped save from Bakhmut and brought to this aid centre in nearby Kramatorsk now shuffle onto a different bus, bound for their next step on the long journey to safety.
"People here are very afraid of others because they get used to sitting in the basement," he says.
"There is a lot of sadness when they leave their homes, which are mostly destroyed. Sometimes they come with just a small bag of belongings."
When asked why he does this dangerous work, his answer is earnest: "I really want to do good and help others."
But there's something else that motivates him to move strangers to safety — he cannot save the people he truly wants to.
His own family is living under Russian occupation in another town in the Donetsk region. He has asked the ABC not to publish the location, but showed pictures and videos of his destroyed village.
"I really want to see my family, my hometown. For a whole year now, we've been communicating in just a few words via message apps."
"You can't say much, because everything is being watched by Russian soldiers," he shrugs as he puts his phone back in his pocket. He knows there's nothing he can do.
Bakhmut in ruins with 'dead people on the streets'
One of the men filing into the new rescue bus is Valerii, who also doesn't want his last name published for the same reasons as Svyat.
He boards with a small suitcase filled with one change of clothes, his identity documents and a stack of photographs wrapped in a plastic zip-lock bag.
Moments earlier, he was looking through the photos, smiling as he clutched the image of his daughter on her first day of pre-school.
She left the region in the early days of the war and Valerii says he wants nothing more than to see her again.
Leaving his home was incredibly difficult for him, but weeks and weeks of heavy shelling had severely damaged his house and he knew if he were to survive, he had little choice but to go.
"The explosions were so strong. For the past week, I haven't been out of the basement, not even just to go outside and get some water," he tells the ABC.
He may have escaped the fighting, but the painful memories are still with him, especially as he relays the scenes he saw as he made his final journey away from the city.
"There were dead people on the streets," he says, as tears well in his eyes.
He says the fighting had become so intense local residents were collecting rainwater to drink, most with no power and living underground in bunkers.
"I was hoping for a miracle that I would not have to leave, this is my home this is where I was born. I did not want to go."
He still keeps in touch with his brother who is helping defend the city and knows that even in the days since he left, the city has deteriorated further.
Others on this evacuation bus outside the Kramatorsk aid centre have been on a days-long journey just to get here.
'I'm going with nothing' say Bakhmut evacuees
Sergei Ivanov smiles widely as he helps others carry their belongings onto the bus. He maintains a cheerful demeanour despite the horror he just lived through.
After living in his basement for weeks, he crept out in search of water and food with his friends, but it would prove a deadly mistake.
"I was walking with my neighbour, and my neighbour was shot. She was hit in an explosion," he tells ABC News.
"It was very horrible, everything was burning, it was all on fire."
With help from evacuators, he got out, first travelling to the Ukrainian-controlled town of Sloviansk before being brought to Kramatorsk to carry on his journey to the unknown.
He is leaving behind the war-torn region he has called home for most of his life, but he's not sure what lies ahead.
"It's starting my life over in my 70s, it is not easy … I'm going with nothing," he says.
It's this fear that kept him at home for so long.
Moments before the bus prepares to take off, a small group gathers in a circle. They reach out and hold each other's hands.
A local aid worker leads them in prayer, asking for peace and safety, then they end their devotion by repeating in unison the lord's prayer.
After a final reorganisation of luggage, everyone is packed onto the bus and it rattles away down the street.
Svyat smiles at one of the women and offers a soft wave as her face behind the window disappears into the distance.
The evacuees are off to the nearby train station which will then send them to safer parts of the country.
For him, the next journey begins too, but not to safety — back to Bahkmut and the villages around it.
There are not many people left there, he says, and soon he expects the evacuations will stop completely as Russia bombards all roads into the city, trying to encircle Ukrainian soldiers.
He says he too prays every day.
"I always pray for peace, that all this ends soon, so that our people can stop dying," he says.
"I pray for my family, to one day be reunited."
