Inside Kramatorsk: Russia Reducing the City to Rubble

Shortly before midnight, the whistle of two aerial bombs shattered the silence that hung over Kramatorsk. Seconds later, the sky flashed orange, and a heavy blast shook the city center. Windowpanes rattled violently inside the house, and everything trembled for a few moments. Russia had just bombed City Hall, less than 800 meters (2,624 feet) from my bed. The Kremlin used two 250-kilogram (551-pound) KAB bombs.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The destruction they caused was immense. City Hall was reduced to rubble, and the shockwave also tore away the wooden boards protecting the windows of every building on Peace Square. Broken glass lay everywhere. Chunks of roofing and debris were scattered dozens of meters from the impact site. (Source: María Senovilla) The metal frames of storefront doors were hurled through the air by the blast as well, even though all of them had been boarded up. And a massive crater, several meters wide, could be seen near the rear entrance on Sunday morning, before an excavator covered it with debris from the building itself. The cleanup effort was no easier. Several military patrols equipped with anti-drone weapons stood guard over crews clearing the streets. Drones hovered above the city center, and soldiers tried to bring them down with shotguns. Even so, the driver of the backhoe had to abandon his vehicle and run for cover several times. Other Topics of Interest Russia's Giant Kaliningrad Radar Could Spy Deep Into Europe The suspected 3,000-kilometer-range system is part of a wider military buildup in the exclave, with more than 20 signal and EW facilities reportedly identified. Municipal workers, firefighters, and police officers have become some of the primary targets for Russian first-person-view (FPV) drone pilots. They are hunted after the bombings, while tending to the wounded or clearing wreckage. The Russians employ the same tactic used by jihadist terrorists: the double tap. More than 16,000 civilians There were no fatalities in the strike on City Hall, but 12 people were injured in Kramatorsk over the course of that day. Many residents have already evacuated the city center, where the scars of recent months of bombardment are visible on nearly every block. Yet the true ground zero of the destruction lies in the eastern districts. Along Kramatorskyi Boulevard, Palace Street, and Parkova Avenue, more and more buildings have either collapsed completely or burned out. The residential complex known as the “Great Wall of China” has also been hit several times. Some enormous apartment blocks burn for days without firefighters coming to extinguish them. The KAB bombs and the constant buzzing of drones have turned Kramatorsk into a ghost town. Only around 16,000 civilians remain here. They emerge briefly in mid-morning, when the curfew ends, and leave their homes to fetch water or buy food from the few shops still open. A few minutes before 11 o’clock, people queue outside the supermarket or the pharmacy, waiting for the doors to open. Only one bank is still operating in the city. Restaurants shut down weeks ago, and only a handful of cafés have survived the extended curfew. Yet nothing is more exhausting than finding water. The outages first lasted days, then weeks. In some districts, residents have gone without running water for months. They must fill bottles with technical water and carry them home. Many civilians travel by bicycle – others can only walk. Hardly any cars still move through the streets. What remains are their skeletons, twisted heaps of burned metal abandoned after being struck by Russian FPV drones. (Source: María Senovilla) There are no longer any journalists living inside Kramatorsk either. In our hearts After the bombing of City Hall, Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko published a message lamenting that one of the symbols of democracy had perished beneath the bombs. “It was a place filled with history,” he wrote. “It preserved the spirit of mechanical industry, revolution, urban life, and the city’s future.” “They can destroy a building, burn our land, and steal our memories. But they cannot destroy our right to a future,” the mayor added. The truth, however, is that Russia has already cut short the future of tens of thousands of people in the Donbas: Those who have died, and those still dying every day – young people unable to make plans to start a family or build a business and older residents forced to leave the homes where they had hoped only to spend their remaining years in peace. On Sunday morning, while crews cleared debris from the streets, Kramatorsk residents slowly made their way to the square outside City Hall, taking photographs and recording videos with their phones. There was sadness in their eyes. They did not need words to describe the pain of watching Russia consume their city, just as it did Bakhmut, Kostiantynivka, and Pokrovsk. (Source: María Senovilla) When Bakhmut finally fell, President Zelensky said that the city “lived only in our hearts.” More than three years later, the reality is that all the cities of northern Donetsk are beginning to exist only in our memories, especially in the memories of those families who lost everything when they fled. Just a year ago, no one could have imagined Kramatorsk draped in anti-drone nets, bombed, burned, and emptied of its people. Everything has happened with astonishing speed, over the course of only a few months. And while the Kremlin’s infantry remains unable to achieve significant advances on the ground along the Donbas frontline, its aircraft are reducing the region to rubble. This is Russia’s new tactic: A scorched-earth strategy through which entire cities are being erased, building by building. The latest to fall was Kramatorsk City Hall. María Senovilla is a Spanish journalist, photographer, and defense analyst. She has been based in Ukraine since 2022. A war correspondent with 15 years of experience, she has previously covered conflicts in Afghanistan and several African countries. The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.