Inside Donetsk as residents flee attacks on Ukrainian region Putin wants to control

The Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine has long been in Moscow's sights. Vladimir Putin reportedly says he'll freeze the war in return for full control of it.

Russia already controls 70% of Donetsk and nearly all of neighbouring Luhansk - and is making slow but steady advances.

I'm heading to the front-line Donetsk town of Dobropillia with two humanitarian volunteers, just 8km (five miles) from Russia's positions. They're on a mission to bring the sick, elderly and children to safer ground.

At first, it goes like clockwork...

As the evacuation team arrives, Vitalii Kalinichenko, 56, is waiting on the doorstep of his apartment block, with a plastic bag full of belongings in hand...

But Varia, 19, feels differently. We can never trust Putin or Russia, whatever they are saying, and we have experience of that. If we give them Donbas, it won't stop anything but only give Russia more room for another attack, she tells me...

These new fortifications carved in the Ukrainian dirt chart a deteriorating situation here in Donetsk. What's left of the region may yet be surrendered by diplomacy, but until then Ukraine, bloodied and exhausted, remains intent on fighting for every inch of it.