Base UA: They Go Where People Are Trying to Escape
This story is about Base UA, a Ukrainian volunteer organization working in the Donbas, evacuating civilians who live on and beyond the frontlines. People who stayed too long, or had nowhere else to go. Elderly people, families, people with disabilities. People who have learned to live with shelling as background noise. The war in Ukraine is often reduced to combat, missiles, and drone attacks on major cities. What is less visible is that entire communities are still living along the frontlines, long after attention has shifted elsewhere. This story exists because those places still exist, and because people are still there. The work of Base UA continues quietly and persistently, often without recognition. That is exactly why it needs to be documented now.
I want to follow their evacuation missions closely, documenting not only the act of evacuation itself, but the human negotiation that precedes it: convincing someone to leave their home, packing an entire life into one bag, deciding what stays behind. These are not logistical operations alone. They are emotional crossings. This story is not only about the people being evacuated, but also about the people who carry out the evacuations. Volunteers who choose to go in the opposite direction. Who enter places others are trying to escape. People who take responsibility again and again, knowing that every mission carries risk, uncertainty, and moral weight.
What makes this story important is that evacuations are often reduced to numbers. X people extracted. X villages emptied. This story restores weight to each decision, each delay, each refusal, and each goodbye. It looks at the moment when staying becomes more dangerous than leaving, and how that moment is different for everyone. I should be the one to tell this story because I have worked alongside Base UA in the Donbas. I know their rhythm, their risks, and their silences. I am not embedded temporarily; I am returning to people I already trust and who trust me. I want to continue following their work because it is not a single story, but a process that evolves every day.
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