“It barely exists any more,” said the mayor of Vovchansk, an industrial town razed by a Russian onslaught shocking even for the killing fields of eastern Ukraine.
Vovchansk has no great history but its geography could not be more tragic. Just 5km (three miles) from the Russian border, drone footage from the Ukrainian military this summer shows a lunar landscape of ruins stretching for kilometres.
And it has got worse since.
“Ninety per cent of the centre is flattened,” said mayor Tamaz Gambarashvili, who runs what is left of Vovchansk from the regional capital of Kharkiv, an hour and a half’s drive away.
“The enemy continues its massive shelling,” he added.
Vovchansk Mayor Tamaz Gambarashvili. Photo: AFP
Six out of 10 of Vovchansk’s buildings have been destroyed, with 18 per cent partially ruined, according to analysis of satellite images by the independent open-source intelligence collective Bellingcat. But the destruction is much worse in the city centre, which has been levelled north of the Vovcha River.