DONETSK, May 3. /TASS/. Russian servicemen evacuated residents from a burning apartment building in Artyomovsk (known as Bakhmut in Ukraine) during a battle, a local woman Svetlana told reporters on Wednesday.
Svetlana is now in one of the temporary accommodation shelters in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).
"A fire started in our house. The third floor caught fire, and there were Ukrainian servicemen on the second floor. The smoke started to come down to our first floor. They were pounding so hard, but we had no way out. Where could we go?" she said.
"We were busy putting out the fire, when guys started shouting, ‘Come out one by one. How many people are there? Take your IDs and come down.’ I asked, ‘Who are you?’ They said, ‘We are Russians.’ When they were leading us through the ruined buildings, we were running in a single file far from one another," the woman said.
According to Svetlana, the Russian soldiers helped locals to get out of the burning building and to carry their belongings to vehicles.
"And the guys helped us, they even carried my cats. I had grabbed them and put into the cat carrier in order to escape. The cats and a bag. That’s all I had time to take with me," she said.
Artyomovsk, located in the Kiev-controlled area of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), has been a major transport hub supplying the Ukrainian battlegroup in Donbass. Yan Gagin, an advisor to the DPR head, told TASS on April 18 that Russian forces had taken control of nearly 90% of the city. Acting DPR Head Denis Pushilin said that Russian forces had advanced in the city’s northwestern and western parts, but the situation in Artyomovsk remained tense.