Families fleeing Russia’s bloody advance on the outskirts of Kyiv on Tuesday were forced to brave freezing temperatures and treacherous river crossings as bombs rained behind them.
Tens of thousands have evacuated on foot from Irpin, just north of the capital, since the weekend, when Putin’s forces began shelling densely populated residential areas.
The bombing intensified after Russian troops who took part of the city were parried by fierce resistance.
Mayor Oleksandr Markushyn said he witnessed ‘two children and two adults die in front of my eyes’ as a shell struck, an incident corroborated by western reporters on the ground.
Ukrainian fighters were seen carrying elderly women over river rapids separating Irpin from the road to Kyiv, after blowing up the bridge in the hope of cutting off Russian vehicles from the capital.
Gunfire and explosions could be heard overhead as parents gripping their childrens’ hands ran southwards in harrowing footage of the scenes.
The route was blanketed in snow and ice as temperatures plummeted later on Tuesday, heaping pressure on the defenders to get children and the elderly to safety.
Both Kyiv and Kharkiv, where the most intense fighting has taken place in recent days, are forecast to experience overnight lows of -10C or -20C with wind chill, the BBC reports.
A rapidly increasing number of properties are without heat due to Russian shelling targeting energy infrastructure sites and some gas supplies having to be turned off due to extensive fires.
Meanwhile, Volodymyr Karplyuk, Irpin’s previous mayor, said Russia had bombed Irpin’s main hospital, the Irpin City Polyclinic, and a nearby medical centre, seizing any medical supplies and humanitarian aid which survived the blasts.
Writing on Facebook, he said residents who had failed to escape Russian-controlled areas of Irpin were being kept at home against their willl, adding: ‘From time to time, human houses are shot at by occupants of different kinds of weapons.
Russia was also accused of killing at least 21 civilians, including two children, in airstrikes on a residential street in the besieged eastern city of Sumy, and bombing a refugee corridor out of the port city of Mariupol.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said Moscow had broken the ceasefire agreed over the area, writing in a statement: ‘The enemy has launched an attack heading exactly at the humanitarian corridor’.
The Russian army ‘did not let children, women and elderly people leave the city’, it added.
Mayor Vadym Boichenko claimed a six-year-old girl named Tanya had died alone from dehydration in the ruins of her home after Russian bombardment cut the city’s water, heat and electricity supplies.
The death could not be indepentently verified but the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed much of Mariupol is without essential utilities: ‘The bottom line today is that this situation is really apocalyptic for people.’
Russia-Ukraine war: Everything you need to know
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, the country has suffered widespread damages and loss of life amid a major bombing campaign.
An estimated 1.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine, as cities face shortages of food, water, heat, and medicine.
Countries have retaliated by imposing sanctions on Russia, with individual companies boycotting Russian products.
This has led to Russian President Vladimir Putin publishing a list of 43 ‘unfriendly countries’ who face economic restrictions for their sanctions.
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