Pavlohrad sits in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk oblast, less than 90km from the front line with Russia and about 500km southeast of Kyiv. There, the Russian bombardment is unrelenting: drone attacks and missile strikes come day after day, and so do the alerts that punctuate daily life. Ten days before this report, a drone struck a shopping centre in the city, killing at least five people and injuring 67, including children.

• •Residents across all Ukrainian oblasts receive real-time phone notifications warning of incoming shahed drones, missiles and guided bombs.
• •Sirens sound alongside the alerts.
• •When a red alert is declared, being in the city centre is considered dangerous - even for military personnel.

The fear is tangible. When journalists visited a shelter, a woman called out to them in fear that the camera could help Russians target it.

'We want to live in Ukraine'

Valentyna, a pensioner in her sixties, says the war should end and Ukraine should negotiate. But when it comes to Russian occupation, she is unequivocal:

She argues that Putin, if given half of Ukraine, would want the rest. Another pensioner, Raïssa, poses a simpler question: who are Ukrainians supposed to negotiate with?

Natalia, also in her sixties, points out that the war began long before Zelensky came to power. Ukraine, in her view, is fighting for Europe, and with more help the situation would be different.

Residents push back on Trump's attacks on Zelensky

Trump criticism of Ukraine's leadership has reached Pavlohrad's residents, and their verdicts are mixed. Valentyna has contradictory views of President Volodymyr Zelensky, yet she takes issue with US President Donald Trump's continued attacks on him. Trump, she notes, has spent his second term in the White House - which began in January 2025 - levelling one charge after another at the Ukrainian president: first that he is responsible for the war, then that he is obstructing a settlement.

• •Trump even labelled him an "unelected dictator", despite the fact that Ukrainian law prohibits wartime elections.
• •On October 10, the US president once again reiterated his claim that Ukrainians need to "get a new leader who can secure a deal".
• •According to a recent poll, 71 percent of Ukrainians oppose the idea of holding wartime elections.

Valentyna does not hold back: "Trump is a puppet. He really is a clown," she says with a smile, arguing he changes his message constantly and stressing that Russia attacked Ukraine, not the reverse.

Natalia says she no longer trusts anyone and would not know whom to vote for. "On TikTok, they say the future candidates are pro-Russian," she explains.

Why Pavlohrad is a target

Pavlohrad is a strategic hub through which troops and equipment pass toward the Donbas - around 11 percent of which remains under Ukrainian control. Valentyn, a soldier in his thirties serving in an electronic warfare unit of the 200th Symon Petliura Brigade, met reporters in a park far from the city centre precisely because being there during a red alert is too dangerous even for military personnel.

In his view, Russia deliberately strikes cafés and shopping centres to terrorise the population, drive people away so the economy fails, and turn residents against Ukrainian authorities. He considers this more a "state policy" than just a strategy for causing chaos.

Valentyna sees another side of the Russian war effort. Putin, she says, lures foreign men with Russian citizenship - "He lures them with a passport, Russian citizenship, and then sends them off to be slaughtered in Ukraine."

Nearly five years into the full-scale invasion, Russia recruits North Koreans, Colombians and Africans to replenish its army. According to a report by Amnesty International, these men - recruited with the promise of a job far from the front line - end up as cannon fodder.

An anonymous soldier sums up the mood: the situation is worsening, but people are sticking together and keeping their spirits up. "Putin thinks he can break us this way," he says. He defends Zelensky and argues corruption is not the fundamental issue. "Russia is trying to destroy us as a Ukrainian nation; it's not about changing our political landscape."