Race to get last children out of Bakhmut as city becomes ‘hell on earth’

With Russian forces closing in, police try to persuade remaining citizens to get out and access routes come under fire

Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

War breeds euphemism and metaphor. In the battle for the Donbas city of Bakhmut, threatened with a closing encirclement by Russian forces after seven months of bitter fighting, there are White Angels" and Dark Angels", the road of life" (the Bakhmut-Lysychansk highway, which is anything but) and the Invincibility Centre".

The White Angels, a police evacuation group, scour the lethal districts of the shell-ruined city to evacuate children and the elderly.