Latest wave of displaced citizens curse ‘imperial ambition’ that has led to an estimated one million Russian casualties

It was last year when Valentyn Velykyi noticed Russia’s war with Ukraine was getting closer. In early summer, it arrived on his doorstep. “You could hear explosions day and night. Recently missiles started flying over my house. There’s a rumbling sound. You can see a trail in the sky,” the 72-year-old pensioner recalled.

Velykyi’s home is at No 18 Petrenko Street, in the small agricultural village of Maliyivka. It is located on the administrative border between Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk provinces in central-eastern Ukraine. Once Russian troops were far away. Latterly, they have crept nearer, besieging the city of Pokrovsk and capturing one grassy meadow after another.