This has particularly been the case since pledges by U.S. President Donald Trump to bring a rapid peace soon after entering office in January have not materialized.

Humanitarian aid, such as that provided by the "Proliska" mission, goes on, however.

Yevhenii Tkachov is a Proliska aid volunteer who has counted himself lucky still to be alive.

ERR's Anton Aleksejev asked Tkachov to recount what had happened to him just three days earlier, on the front line near Pokrovsk – an embattled city which has held out against the Russian onslaught, but at great cost, and with a greatly reduced population.

"Even a little earlier than that, but essentially this naive volunteer Yevhenii Tkachov fleetingly had faith in the humanity of Russia, even somewhat in Putin, and in the Easter truce that was announced. For this reason, he went to rescue the elderly from a front-line village. But these good Orthodox Russians set three FPV drones on us. A woman and I were lightly wounded," Tkachov said.

At the start of the year, the number of people wishing to evacuate from the front line had fallen, and people had started to hope that the war, now in its fourth year, would end soon, not least with the change in U.S. president.

"Many people said they had been ready to leave as early as the start of January but were still waiting for Trump's inauguration. That was on January 24th or 27th, I can't remember exactly. One, two, three days passed, but nothing changed. People told me they had been sitting on their suitcases for weeks. They gave Trump one last chance, but then they started leaving en masse," said Tkachov.

On the day ERR caught up with him, Yevhenii's workday was calm, and he only needed to evacuate one woman from a shelter, in front-line Kostyantynivka, Donetsk oblast.

"We tell people to come here by themselves from their homes, they can get shelter, food, and drink," he said of the aid.

In this way, he was taking one civilian, Natalia, from there to the relatively safe Dobropillia, around 60 kilometers to the west, where the volunteers' headquarters is located. Natalia looked relatively calm, but leaving her home forever left a mark on the psyche.

She said: "It's better to leave. I waited a long time, sat around here. Now it has gotten terrifying. People are dying all around."

Viktoria, herself a psychologist, noted that the situation they are living in was not a normal one even for a Ukraine under Russian invasion.

"People need to grasp that if they suddenly start crying for no apparent reason, that is normal. Some think there is something wrong with them because they cry, while others do not. The purpose of psychological support is to explain that this feeling is normal. What's abnormal is the situation we are in. The body and mind are simply responding to the circumstances," Viktoria said.

Soon Natalia and two other civilians, elderly couple Nikolai and Lyudmyla, arrive at the center. They had been living for over a month in the basement of their house in Pokrovsk, under constant shelling.

Nikolai said: "The situation there is very bad. Bombs fall around the clock, houses are being destroyed. There's nowhere to run. We sat in the basement. We even brought a stove there. There was nothing to eat. Thanks to [volunteer] Ihor for bringing us at least some food. May he be blessed! But living like that is impossible."

Ihor meanwhile finally managed to evacuate Nikolai and Lyudmyla from Pokrovsk. Unfortunately, he didn't have time for an interview with ERR, as his next task was already waiting for him.

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