By Galina Korol | 2026-03-06

Donetsk once smelled of roses. Euro 2012 was coming, the streets were being prepared, and the city hummed with the kind of ordinary promise that feels permanent until it isn't. Today, mines are closing, factories lie in ruins, and the businesses that remain survive only by pledging loyalty to occupation authorities.

For decades, eastern Ukraine powered the country's industry while the West preserved its cultural core. Russia's intervention in Donbas upended that balance, destroying communities and erasing towns. Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, the economic devastation has only deepened.

Hundreds of enterprises -- from major industrial plants to small retail shops -- have been destroyed, looted or forcibly transferred to new owners. Donbas has suffered the heaviest losses. While Moscow claimed it came to "protect" the region, the war has stripped it of much of its economic life.

Large factories lie in ruins, mines continue to close and small businesses now focus on survival rather than growth, the National Resistance Center reports.

"Access to markets and retail outlets often hinges on loyalty to the occupation authorities. Those who agree to cooperate receive favorable terms, while those who refuse face inspections, harassment and bans on operating," Dmitry, a representative of the National Resistance Center, told Kontur.

He said occupation administrations and affiliated structures -- often involving security forces -- tightly control small entrepreneurs. Property seizures and forced "re-registration" of businesses are common, frequently justified by fabricated violations or intimidation. Authorities have also used passportization as leverage: without a Russian passport, registering a business in occupied territories has become impossible, the center said.

The result is a region hollowed out from within -- and for many residents, departure has become the only rational response.

Exodus and pressure

Economic collapse has compounded the humanitarian toll. As businesses close and jobs disappear, residents lose the means to support themselves, pushing many to flee.

This pressure comes alongside widespread rights violations, insecurity and suppression of dissent documented by human rights groups. For many, leaving has become the only option.

Nearly 1.5 million residents have fled the Donetsk region since 2014, according to figures cited by Ukrainian media outlet Vchasno in June 2025. The number does not include those displaced from Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia or Crimea.

For Albina Polyanskaya, occupation made normal life impossible long before the full-scale war.

Born and raised in Donetsk, she remembers a vibrant city filled with promise -- the Children's Railway, the Kalmius River and preparations for Euro 2012, when roses filled the streets and a "scent that still lingers in my memory.”

"I often dream of the courtyard where I grew up, and I still walk the streets of my hometown in my dreams," she told Kontur.

That world began to unravel in spring 2014, when armed men arrived from Russia.

"We could see them clearly. They didn't know their way around, yet they acted like they owned the place," she recalled.

She attended pro-Ukrainian rallies where protesters were doused with dye or beaten. Eventually she realized staying was no longer safe.

"At some point, I realized they were just going to kill me... Life was draining out of the city, leaving behind nothing but soulless shells of residential buildings and brainwashed people," she said.

Her family fled on October 22, 2014. Two weeks later, her childhood home was destroyed by shelling.

Years of displacement followed, first within Ukraine and later across Europe after the 2022 invasion. She eventually settled in Germany, learned the language and opened a hair extension studio from scratch.

Yet Donetsk remains central to her memories.

"Recently my boyfriend got a console with a game that has maps to fly over cities. I flew over Donetsk and I just sobbed," she said.

She believes the city's Soviet-era Russification shaped events in 2014, adding that many educated residents left while others stayed.

"It was a normal, promising life. And then Russia came and destroyed everything."

Leaving for survival

Yulia Klimenko of Mariupol reached a similar conclusion during the first weeks of the full-scale war.

"When we were leaving, it was a terrifying time. Even now, when I flip through it in my memory, it's as if a segment has been cut out," she told Kontur.

She fled the besieged city on March 24, 2022, with her parents and daughter.

"We were heading into the unknown. We left on foot. Back then, no one was being let out; people left at their own peril," she said.

They took only documents and a small bag. Within days, the city lost electricity, water, gas and communications.

"When the phone service, water, electricity, and gas were cut off, we reverted to a primitive state in just a few days," she recalled.

Today Klimenko lives in Germany, where she has opened a small café and hopes to expand it. Entrepreneurship abroad is difficult, she said, but it offers something occupation cannot.

"I can't imagine at all what one can even do there now. Where to work, what kind of future to build, especially for the children," she said.

Looking at images of Mariupol today, she struggles to recognize it.

"It's foreign now... Even when I look at all these videos and photos, I can hardly recognize anything," she said.