DEBALTSEVE, Ukraine — Ukrainian soldiers rattled along the snowy streets here in armored personnel carriers with the hatches battened down, their helmeted heads safely below plates of steel.
A few drunks staggered along the sidewalks, oblivious to the booms of artillery echoing through town.
Stray dogs scurried about, and in another sign that nobody ventures above ground for anything but pressing business, the carcass of one dog lay uncollected, frozen in the middle of a street.
For more than a week, this unremarkable small town in eastern Ukraine has been almost surrounded by attacking rebels. And because enveloping maneuvers are common in this nine-month war, there is even a phrase for it: “falling into a kettle.”
Debaltseve in the kettle is a glum place. “It’s just a horror living here,” said one woman in a crowd of mothers clutching children and packed bags made of plastic at a bus stop, waiting for a ride out.
After seizing a strategic airport outside Donetsk a week ago, the Russian-backed rebels have turned their sights on this town, valuable for its railroad switching yards, which they will need to revive the economy in areas under their control.
LUHANSK
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As it turned out, when the fighting started in Debaltseve in late January, the Russian general simply stopped making the trip, staying behind at a barracks for peacekeeping officials.
“The general staff had a political strategy” of trying to bolster the cease-fire, not a military strategy to defend the town, Mr. Semenchenko said. Not enough attention was paid to the flanks, he said, leaving the road exposed.
The Ministry of Emergency Situations in Ukraine says it is doing all it can to diminish the risks to civilians. The ministry said 956 people, including 161 children, were evacuated from Thursday to Saturday. The prewar population was about 10,000.
At the bus stop, all attention was focused on the battle for the road and the journey ahead for those waiting for minibuses out. “They shoot the buses,” one woman said, yelling.
Spread out along tiny checkpoints of concrete bunkers along the 31 miles of road, Ukrainian soldiers can do nothing now but brace for assaults — even as the minibuses of evacuees bump slowly past.
“In the mist, you cannot see the enemy,” Mr. Semenchenko said. “You just hear the incoming rockets.”
A version of this article appears in print on February 2, 2015, on page A3 of the New York edition with the headline: Ukraine Fighting Rages: ‘Just a Horror Living Here’. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
