Buried in a field across the street from an apartment complex is Sergei Kotako. His neighbors say he was a good man, a retired electrician who helped care for elderly women in his building.

During two months of heavy battles here last summer, cluster bombs fell, and on one occasion, Kotako didn’t make it to a shelter in time. He was in his mid-60s.

Like most people we meet in Siversk, a small town only a few kilometers from the front lines of the Russia’s war in Ukraine, Angelina, a resident, does not want to share her last name. She says she didn’t know Kotako well before the war. But since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, everyone in town knows everyone.

“The war somehow …” she says, stopping short. She then motions with her hands the formation of a group. She pats a large imaginary dough ball into an invisible loaf of round bread.

“There’s not many of us left here,” she explains. “Before, there [were] 11 or 12,000 people here. Now, it’s only around 2,000. When the humanitarian aid comes, we all go to the same place to collect it.”

Around the corner, dusty aid vans come through, pausing to distribute food or water. Most shops are closed, and most people don’t have money. Even if they did, there’s no available running water, gas or electricity.

WATCH: In the Heart of Russia’s War in Ukraine

Front-line cemetery

Siversk has been a war zone since 2014, but most of the people who lived here didn’t flee until after Russia invaded last year.

Since then, gardens, fields and backyards have become makeshift graveyards. The local cemetery, residents say, is right up against the front line.

“It’s far too dangerous to go there,” says Galyna, 71. “It’s only 4 kilometers away, but you can’t even ask soldiers to go there for burials.”

On homemade crosses labeling the graves, the dates reveal the nature of the war. Many deaths occurred last summer, when Siversk was not just near the front line but a center of battle.

Others are more recent, like a 97-year-old woman buried by the entrance to an apartment building. She was a friend of Galyna and died last week. We found her daughter sitting on the building’s stoop.

She asked us not to take pictures of the freshly turned-up ground over her mother. The death was too recent, she says.

“We buried her with our neighbors’ help,” she says, declining to give her name. “Everyone uses their own shovel.”

In Pictures: Siversk, Ukraine Battleground Town

Wartime priorities

In Siversk, tanks and artillery are hidden behind apartment buildings. We are also told not to take pictures of weapons, in case it gives away their positions. The crash of fire going in and out of town is sometimes deafening.

In other parts of Ukraine, wartime has galvanized patriots, with many people supporting the idea of fighting until total victory or total defeat.

But here in the war zone among the pockets of people remaining, it is not unusual to find locals who identify with Russia. Most people we meet won’t declare support for either side publicly. They don’t know who will rule the area in the months and years to come.

Galyna, however, says openly that she doesn’t care who wins if they stop firing.

“I only want peace,” she says. “Only calmness.”

Oleksandr Babenko contributed to this report.
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