"It barely exists anymore," said the mayor of Vovchansk, an industrial town razed by a Russian onslaught shocking even for the killing fields of eastern Ukraine.
Vovchansk has no great history but its geography could not be more tragic. Just five kilometres (three miles) from the Russian border, drone footage from the Ukrainian military this summer shows a lunar landscape of ruins stretching for miles.
And it has got worse since.
"Ninety percent of the centre is flattened," said mayor Tamaz Gambarashvili, a towering man in uniform, who runs what is left of Vovchansk from the regional capital of Kharkiv, an hour and a half's drive away.
"The enemy continues its massive shelling," he added.
Six out of 10 of Vovchansk's buildings have been totally destroyed, with 18 percent partially ruined, according to analysis of satellite images by the independent open-source intelligence collective Bellingcat. But the destruction is much worse in the city centre, which has been levelled north of the Vovcha River.
AFP and Bellingcat joined forces to tell how, building by building, an entire city was wiped off the map in just a few weeks -- and to show the human toll it has taken.
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