Bakhmut exiles still live in hope

Anna Holubtsova was getting ready to sing at the concert organised in Kyiv by the Bakhmut administration, exiled since Russian forces devastated and seized their eastern Ukrainian city.

The last time AFP saw Holubtsova was in October 2022, when she was standing next to the burning house of her neighbour, destroyed by a rocket.

Over two years later she refuses to give up on the hope to see her hometown back under the Ukrainian flag.

"Maybe I am a dreamer or a fairy-tale maker. But I have said and will continue to say that my family will be one of the first to return and rebuild Bakhmut," she said.

That prospect is growing tenuous.

Ukraine's army is on the back foot in most parts of the front while Russia presses on with its advantage ahead of the inauguration next month of US president-elect Donald Trump.