‘Now I am a beggar’: fleeing the Russian advance in Ukraine
- On Friday, police evacuated 18 people, including nine children, from a basement where they had been living for the past two and a half months
- Civilians who have managed to flee Russian bombings say intensified shelling over the past week left them unable to even venture out from basement bomb shelters
As Russian forces press their offensive to take the eastern Ukrainian cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, civilians who have managed to flee say intensified shelling over the past week left them unable to even venture out from basement bomb shelters.
Despite the attacks, some managed to make it to the town of Pokrovsk, 130 kilometres to the south, and boarded an evacuation train Saturday heading west, away from the fighting.
Fighting has raged around Lysychansk and neighbouring Sievierodonetsk, the last major cities under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk region. Luhansk and the Donetsk region to its south make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland which is the focus of Russia’s current offensive. Moscow-backed separatists have controlled parts of the Donbas for eight years and Russian forces are now trying to capture at least the whole Donbas.
Bouncing her 18-month-old son on her lap, Yana Skakova choked back tears as she described living in a basement under relentless bombing, and having to leave her husband behind when she fled with her baby and 4-year-old son.
Initially after the war broke out, there were quiet times when they could come out of the basement to cook in the street and let the children play outdoors. But about a week ago, the bombing intensified. For the past five days, they hadn’t been able to venture out of the basement at all.
“Now the situation is bad, it’s scary to go out,” she said.
It was the police who came to evacuate them Friday from the basement where 18 people, including nine children, had been living for the past two and a half months.