A major media figure in Germany, Stephen Schwarzkopf (who is a war correspondent for Welt, a major German newspaper), has said that the people in Bakhmut are waiting for the Russians to liberate them. As we read in Global Euro News:

Journalist Schwarzkopf: there are people in Artemivsk who are waiting for Russia to come

The residents of Artemovsk believe that Russia will liberate them, and therefore do not leave the city, said Die Welt chief correspondent Steffen Schwarzkopf. Notably, the journalist’s attempts to convince citizens to evacuate ended in failure.

Steffen Schwarzkopf, Die Welt correspondent-in-chief: There could be different reasons for the decision to stay.

Some of the old people seemed to say, “We don’t have the opportunity to leave, we’d rather stay home.”

But here’s what we heard ourselves when we arrived there with a team of German correspondents to observe [the evacuation announced by the Ukrainian government].

There were people who said, “And we don’t want to leave. We’re waiting for the Russians to liberate the city.”

They said they got information from Mariupol that the city was being rebuilt, and it would soon be a blooming landscape.

These civilians said, “People there have got money, they are given food. The Russians won’t leave us, they’ll take care of us. So we are waiting to be liberated, so they can take care of us.

That is how we were told. We must not forget one bitter truth: Many people in eastern Ukraine are pro-Russian. They cooperate with the Russian authorities and expect their lives to be better under Russian control , the journalist said.