Recording bomb sites, searching for missing people and evacuating civilians: police shoulder a heavy workload in the town of Chasiv Yar, close to the eastern Ukraine frontline near Bakhmut.
Explosions are near constant in the small town, whose buildings are scored with holes from shelling. It is a hub for troops heading to and from the front line but locals still live here.
Sandbags at the entrance were the only sign of the police station on the ground floor of a Soviet-era block of flats in the town centre.
Inside, police worked in a windowless room, with computers and piles of official forms, all filled out by hand.
The latest strike had been just that morning but had caused no injuries, the chief inspector Dmytro Kuzmenko, who has the rank of major, told AFP.
Every time Russia shelled the town, he said, "our team of investigators writes this up and documents everything".
The 39-year-old with a shaved head and black beard said his team's task has not fundamentally changed since the Russian invasion, but "the workload is much bigger" and "more war-related".
The officers have had to relocate from the neighbouring town of Bakhmut, scene of the longest-running and bloodiest battle of the war so far.
They moved to Chasiv Yar in early March when the situation in Bakhmut became too dangerous.
- 'Risking your life' -
Ukrainian artillery as well as incoming fire from Russians constantly sounded in and around this strategic town.
"The hardest thing about our work is risking your life," said Kuzmenko.
"Last year I was wounded near the police station in Bakhmut. I have three shrapnel wounds from shelling."
There are only 600 people, all adults, still living among the ruins of Chasiv Yar, out of a pre-war population of 12,000.
He was glad that "people have shown some common sense and got their children out", he said. In other places devastated by the war, some families had insisted on staying.
Evacuating children from areas under fire was "painstaking and difficult work", he said.
It involved "complex measures, which luckily proved effective here", he said. "But that is not the case everywhere."
Those still living in Chasiv Yar are mainly older people who "have nowhere to go", said Kemran Azermanov, deputy chief of the Bakhmut district police department.
They "know it will be difficult to start everything over in a different city or region at their age", he added.
Yet those who stay face enormous hardships.
"There is no electricity, no phone network, no water," said Azermanov. "During winter it will be a bit difficult."
There is also a belief that locals who stay are pro-Russian and are hoping that Moscow troops will eventually arrive.
One police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that in Bakhmut some parents had waited for Russians to arrive and hid their children in cellars to stop Ukrainian police evacuating them.
Kuzmenko insisted, however, that Chasiv Yar was not divided. The police were ready to help all the residents, he said.
- Alcohol sales banned -
The police also investigate cases of missing civilians and soldiers. They respond to enquiries from local residents who have left but are anxious about the fate of loved ones who stayed behind or the state of their homes.
"This morning five soldiers' wives have called already saying their husbands are missing (in action)," said Kuzmenko.
They also crack down on sale of alcohol, prohibited across the whole Donetsk region under wartime regulations.
"People try to bring it in here and sell it at a much higher price...," said Kuzmenko. "We make sure the alcohol does not reach the soldiers."
But the officers' main work is "documenting war crimes, mainly shelling" of civilians, said Azermanov.
Among the dozen police officers who rotate to cover Chasiv Yar 24 hours, is 29-year-old Vasyl, a criminologist.
Every time the town gets shelled, "we are always the first to report on everything at the crime scene", he said.
"The hardest thing is seeing our towns where we were born, lived and worked, turn into ruins, where people are left without shelter, where many have died," he added.
"How and when will life return to normal? This is not at all clear. But we try not to think about this. We are doing what we have to do."
