Sawt Falasteen - Ukrainian forces cling on in devastated eastern town Popasna

The blasts of artillery echo around the town that was once home to 20,000 people before the war.

Now the road in is a scene of devastation.

Nothing is left of a petrol station except for the crumpled skeleton of its roof.

Buildings have been eviscerated and none are intact. Shards of glass, wood and metal lie strewn on the ground as if a tornado had hit.

Only the crash of the explosions interrupts the noise of the ceaseless rain.

Just a few residents have stayed and, like the three soldiers encountered by AFP, they shelter in cellars.

"The guys have just returned from combat, they are resting," explained one of the soldiers, a man in his fifties with the call sign "Semenovych".

One of his comrades is wearing socks, fatigues and a blue jumper. He has an emaciated face and dark circles under his eyes.

Another, in his sixties, with an open army jacket and a long grey beard, looks exhausted.

He disappears into the dark depths of the cellar to go to bed.

By the harsh light of a headlamp, Semenovych says he doesn't know "the latest news, there's no internet here, no telephone network".

- 'We will resist' -

"The Russians are trying to advance two or three times a day. It's good that it's raining today, the shelling is less intense. Sometimes it's 24/7, sometimes it's a bit quieter at night," he tells AFP.

"They are targeting the infrastructure, the buildings and the civilians. It's not a war, it's a genocide. I don't know what else to call it."

But he insists doggedly that "we are holding our positions and we hope for a victory... We will resist".

In the back of a completely destroyed convenience store in the same building where the soldiers are resting, four bulletproof vests, two helmets and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher lie on the ground.

Russia's Defence Ministry on Tuesday announced that "artillery units" had struck a Ukrainian unit in Popasna, giving a toll of "more than 120 personnel" killed and "11 armoured vehicles" destroyed.

These figures could not be verified.

Popasna is in a key strategic location along the front line between the two forces.

If the city falls it will open up a route for Russian forces to push 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest towards the twin cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, Ukraine's main military hub in the east.

- 'I need silence' -

Resident Yelena Sharpai is "really afraid" of the bombings.

She will be 60 at the end of the month and would have liked to enjoy her retirement after a career as a nurse.

But since March 6, she has been living with four other people in a cellar of 15 square metres in the same building where the Ukrainian soldiers are resting.

"I need silence to go out, but it's never silent, because there is always bombing somewhere," she says, stroking her 14-year-old grey cat called Mouse.

She no longer goes to her ground-floor flat, where all the windows have been shattered.

There are four sofa beds in the cellar and it is lit by lamps linked up to car batteries.

For now there is still food.

"Sometimes the soldiers bring us bread," she says.

For water, they collect rain.

An old woman living in her block died of a stroke and a man was killed by shrapnel.

They were buried in the garden at the back.

"There is a family with children in the building opposite. They did not want to be evacuated," says Sharpai.

As for her, she is keen to go.

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk announced Thursday a resumption of evacuation routes, notably from Popasna, a day after they were closed because they had become "too dangerous".

"But the buses don't come anymore," says Sherpai.

As she speaks another volley of Russian artillery thunders outside.

B.Khalifa--SF-PST