It is very hot. We see dozens waiting in line for the station doors to open, to have a chance to get on a train to get out of danger.
We have seen it again and again since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. But it is not easier.
In the Donbas, Russian soldiers are fighting in towns, villages and villages, while the Ukrainian army is trying to maintain its lines.
Read more: Zelenskyy says the fate of the Donbas depends on the “brutal” war in Severodonetsk, as an “endless caravan of death” discovered in Mariupol
Thousands and thousands of people still remain as war approaches.
But when conditions become unbearable, when their homes are destroyed or uninhabitable, they reluctantly leave, taking everything they can from their past lives.
They end up at the station, in a row, trying to escape with the 16.30 express from Pokrovsk, in the Donbas region.
Image: People arrive at a station in eastern Ukraine
Many of those we know have endured for months.
But as heavy artillery and street fighting worsen in Severodonetsk and Lysychansk in particular, they say they can’t stand it any longer.
Carefully, the volunteers carry the sick and disabled to small elevators attached to the sides of the train carriages.
Image: A woman gets on a train at a station in eastern Ukraine
Most will never return
They lift them into the arms of the railway staff waiting for them and carry them inside.
Doctors check that they are well before moving on to the next potential patient.
It is likely that these people will never return after a life in the East, a life intrinsically linked to Russia. Most speak only Russian and many of their families are Russian.
Image: An elderly woman is one of the people forced to flee by train from eastern Ukraine Image: A woman is transported to a station in eastern Ukraine by ambulance
Before the war, many crossed between the two countries.
They are now forced into a new life in the west of the country, where most speak a foreign language, Ukrainian.
You can see that their hearts are broken.
We first meet Kateryna Bednenko, 76, in the back of an ambulance parked on the platform.
Image: Kateryna and Mykola wait for a train to take them from eastern Ukraine
He suffered a stroke and is now immobile.
As the fighting in Lysychansk intensified, she and her husband Mykola had to wait to be rescued.
He tells us it’s the first time they’ve been out since February.
Getting to this train station has been a mission for 78-year-old Valentyna Volochkova.
Image: Valentyna Volochkova had a hard time getting to the station
She went to the market near her home, was criticized, and then gave up returning home.
He continued walking, two and a half miles, and took the first taxi.
He has left his life behind, but he does not regret it.
Image: Families walking to join a train at a station in eastern Ukraine
“What should I expect? For now [my house] was it destroyed with me inside? So I gathered all my courage, went out and raised my hands to show that I was leaving, “she told me sitting in the train car waiting for the exit.
In a carriage for families with children we meet Liudmyla.
This is a journey she and her son do not want to take. They don’t want to leave their house.
“Do I have any other options? How can I keep my son there when all his classmates are gone?” she asks.
Image: A family arrives by car at a station in eastern Ukraine
She feels she has to do this, if not for herself, for her son.
“Tell me, please, what would you do if it were me? Would you stay home? All the windows were shattered, and the windows flew out …” Then she began to cry, almost embarrassed by her tears.
“What, what would you do,” she asks once more, her 11-year-old son sitting quietly beside her listening to her.
“We worked for everything we had for 30 years. We were building the house and we had finally finished it …”
There are no signs of a halt in this war.
And those who have come here are the believers in security and support promised by the West: security and support that has come to them too late.