ARTICLE: Behind Donetsk’s 9.76 km²: Lives That No Map Shows

5.42 square kilometers Reclaimed from the Occupation

Between the villages of Filia and Ivanivka, Ukrainian forces have regained permanent control over 5.42 square kilometers of land that was previously in a gray zone, and have pushed an additional 6.69 square kilometers out from under direct occupation.

These aren’t just numbers representing military recapture. They represent homes where someone might, one day, be able to return to live without fearing every distant sound of an engine.

I cling to these small, almost unknown villages as proof that human resilience can still turn the tide.

Living with Constant Uncertainty

In several sectors, DeepState notes that no significant changes were observed last week. For an analyst, this is a neutral development. For the civilians still living there, it’s another week gone by without knowing whether tomorrow will be like today.

This chronic uncertainty—this sense of endless waiting—is perhaps the most underestimated form of suffering in this war by those who watch it from afar.

I often think about this silent weariness—the exhaustion of never knowing whether the lull will last an hour or a month.

5.75 square kilometers lost near Zaliznychne

After a quiet week, the Russian army resumed its offensive near Zaliznychne, in the Huliaipole sector, gaining an additional 5.75 square kilometers. For families who thought they had earned a respite, a new chapter of fear is beginning.

This constant back-and-forth between lulls and renewed fighting wears on both nerves and bodies, week after week, without ever allowing time to truly catch one’s breath.

I find it deeply unjust that civilians must relive, over and over again, this cycle of false hope and recurring fear.

Living Just a Few Kilometers from the Aggressor

Near Strelecha, in the Kharkiv region, the Russian army has advanced 3.78 square kilometers, very close to the state border. Living this close to the army that has invaded your country profoundly changes your daily sense of security.

Every noise, every movement in the distance could signal a new wave of attacks. It’s a state of constant vigilance that few of us in the West can truly imagine living with.

I feel a deep unease at the thought that this constant proximity to danger has become, for them, almost routine.

A war of attrition that wears down the troops

Every advance or retreat mapped out on DeepState’s screens represents hours, days, sometimes weeks of fierce infantry combat, trench by trench, under conditions that few accounts manage to convey accurately.

The Ukrainian soldiers holding these lines have often been doing so for months without sufficient reinforcements, exhausted but determined not to give up a single meter more than necessary.

I think of these anonymous soldiers whose names will never appear on a map, but whose sacrifice makes this slowdown possible.

The Fragile Hope of a Possible Return

For the thousands of families displaced from Kostiantynivka, Dobropillia, or Kramatorsk, every square kilometer recaptured by Ukraine rekindles a fragile hope: that of one day returning home, even if that home may no longer exist.

This hope, however faint it may be, is what keeps many going, far from home, in temporary housing across the country.

I refuse to underestimate the power of this fragile hope, which keeps so many families uprooted by this war standing strong.

Three and a half years of unrelenting tension

This war has been going on for more than three years, and the mere fact that a slowdown in the Russian offensive is making headlines shows just how much the wait for a decisive turning point is taking a psychological toll on an entire population, day after day.

In the accounts trickling out of Ukraine, I sense a deep weariness mixed with a determination that stubbornly refuses to give in to that weariness.

This determination, despite the obvious exhaustion, commands a respect from me that I don’t always know how to express strongly enough.

Ammunition That Saves Lives

This slowdown in the Russian advance coincides with increased Western deliveries of air defense systems and artillery ammunition. These deliveries—which may seem abstract when viewed from our comfortable Western capitals—translate into concrete results on the ground, saving lives day after day.

Every shipment of shells, every air defense system delivered on time, may be, somewhere, the reason a family was able to sleep one more night without being woken by an explosion.

I want to believe that our material support—no matter how far removed it may be from our daily concerns—is truly saving lives every day.

Choosing Not to Leave

Some residents of areas near the front lines have chosen to stay despite everything—out of attachment to their homeland, because they lack the means to leave, or simply because they’re too exhausted to face the idea of starting over somewhere else.

These people live according to the rhythm of DeepState’s maps without ever consulting them, simply listening to see if the sound of fighting is getting closer or farther away, day after day.

I think of these lives hanging in the balance with a distant sound, forced to guess at their future by the sound of explosions.

The Destruction Already Inflicted

Even as the Russian advance slows, the destruction already inflicted on these regions of the Donbas will not disappear. Schools, hospitals, homes: months, sometimes years of community life reduced to ruins, long before this slowdown was even measured.

Slowing the advance does not yet mean rebuilding what has been lost. It simply means preventing the list of losses from continuing to grow as rapidly as before.

I refuse to let this encouraging figure make us forget everything that was already destroyed before it even existed.

Never reduce their lived experiences to a map

It’s easy, from the comfort of our living rooms in the West, to comment on maps and percentages without ever pausing to consider the faces they represent. In every piece I write, I strive to resist this temptation toward comfortable abstraction.

These civilians in the Donbass deserve to have their hometowns and their stories remembered—far more than the mere numbers that summarize them in our detached analyses.

I bear this responsibility as a personal duty: never to let a number erase a human face.

Beware of False Victories

This slowdown is a cause for cautious hope, not a victory to celebrate. The history of this war has already shown that periods of respite can be followed by brutal, unannounced offensives.

I prefer measured and honest hope to a promise of victory that, if it turned out to be false, would further shatter the morale of those who have held out for so long.

I choose the caution of hope over the illusion of a victory declared too soon.

Rejecting the Indifference of Numbers

I wanted to write this post because a technical statistic, however encouraging it may be, must never replace the humanity of those it concerns. War statistics are quickly forgotten; the lives they represent deserve to be remembered.

This is my modest way of refusing to let this war become, for us in the West, nothing more than a collection of faceless percentages.

I will continue to write these posts as long as I believe they can, in some small way, bring back a sense of humanity to our understanding of this war.

Growing Up to the Rhythm of Front-Line Maps

Thousands of Ukrainian children have grown up in recent years learning to recognize the sound of a drone before that of a commercial airliner, and knowing the way to the shelter before the way to school. This slowdown in the Russian advance does not give them back their lost childhood.

But it may offer them, for a few more weeks, a few fewer interrupted nights and a little more continuity in a life already shattered by forced displacement and family separations.

I think of these children every time a front-line situation improves, even slightly, because they alone truly deserve this respite.

What This Setback Really Means

Those 9.76 square kilometers lost by the Russian army last week are not just a military statistic. They represent homes, streets, and lives on hold—lives that may be breathing a little easier tonight than they were a week ago.

I’ll close this post with a simple, almost naive thought: every square kilometer recaptured is one more chance for someone to return home someday.

I choose to believe, against all odds, that these small square kilometers herald greater things to come.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist