Towns and Ukrainian villages across eastern Ukraine have been falling to Russian forces along a front that has become more precarious each week. In the face of rapidly advancing Russian troops, families have been uprooted and children separated from their parents as they are evacuated to safer parts of the country. Those left behind are caught up in a race against time. "You go to bed and you are not sure whether you will wake up alive in the morning at home. My children left a long time ago, in 2022," says Iryna Cherednychenko, who plans to leave her village of Novogrodivka with her husband imminently. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES ARRANGED IN SEQUENCES