Slatyne’s only hospital stands abandoned, its windows shattered and doors blown open by shelling. The interior, although spared from looting, is long abandoned, the pot plants that lined the corridors now yellow and dead. Although people are dying daily in the surrounding countryside, there is no sign of a doctor.

This rural town of 6,000 people just 12 miles from the Russian border has been violently contested since the invasion began in February. While the Ukrainian government declared it liberated in mid-April, local forces maintain just a tiny presence in an area that is essentially no man’s land.

Across the street from the hospital, Yuri Koptyug, a 60-year-old factory worker, stands outside his house smoking a cigarette. He had remained in Slatyne throughout the war, surviving off humanitarian supplies delivered by volunteers.