Gruesome scenes and anguish in Ukraine frontline city Lysychansk: ‘They bomb and bomb’
- Lysychansk and twin city Sievierodonetsk in the strategic Luhansk region have come under intense Russian shelling
- Residents describe aftermath of shelling that killed elderly woman and husband in garden: ‘her guts were falling out’
Maksym Katerin was red-eyed as he showed the fresh graves of his mother and stepfather, scattered with rose petals, in his garden in Ukraine’s frontline city of Lysychansk.
On Sunday afternoon at around 5pm, a shell ripped through his peaceful garden with its piglets and chickens, instantly killing his mother Nataliya and her husband Mykola, both 65, leaving their mutilated bodies on the ground.
“I don’t know who did this, but if I knew, I would tear off their arms,” said Katerin on Monday.
After months of shelling, the strategic city in eastern Ukraine is massively damaged with no water, electricity or phone signal.
Ukrainian artillery uses its high ground to exchange fire with Russian forces fighting for control of Sievierodonetsk, just across the river.
Katerin’s neighbour Yevgeniya Panicheva wept, saying Katerin’s mother “was lying here, her stomach was ripped and her guts were falling out. She was a very good, kind and helpful woman. Why did they do this to her?”