War in Ukraine – why civilians are dying
On February 24, 2022, enemy troops invaded Ukraine along the entire border with Russia. The day before, on the 22nd, the Federation Council approved Putin’s address on the use of the Russian Armed Forces abroad, and the Russian president gave an hour-long speech in which he admitted the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. The Russian Security Council expressed support for the helpless citizens of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and declared that Russia will not abandon the Donbass in its wake.
Today the occupiers mercilessly shell and bomb cities and villages, kill civilians, and leave settlements on the brink of humanitarian disaster.
Kharkiv is a city of millions, a city of students, and a city that in pre-war times was closely linked economically to Russian Belgorod. The city that today is under shelling and incessant attacks on civilians. On February 26, an evacuation bus was shot up: 1 person was killed, 14 wounded. Every day, rockets hit uptown, killing and maiming hundreds of civilians. As a result of a missile hitting a 9-storey building, a woman was killed and about 20 people were wounded. Part of the missile hit a children’s playground. Sabotage and reconnaissance groups marauded through the city; enemy vehicles drove around. Endless grads are fired day and night on the streets and houses where innocent residents of Kharkiv are hiding. On February 28, Russian shells hit two sixteen-story buildings, causing the upper floors to collapse. And on March 1, a terrible explosion hit the largest square in Europe, Svobody Square in Kharkiv (dozens of people were trapped under the rubble, 20 were wounded). On the same day, a missile was thrown from an enemy plane, which hit a residential building and caused the death of eight people.
Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine, the heart of the country, which for eight days stands and does not lay down its arms in front of the enemy. During that time, Russian troops have tried to ring the city, which they have so far failed to do. On February 25 part of a shell hit a multi-story house on the left bank and a fire broke out. On February 26, the same fate befell another apartment complex. A tank ran over a civilian car with a driver inside, the man miraculously survived. Every night, explosions are heard and seen in different districts of the capital: the skies of Kyiv, like those of Kharkiv, had not been black for the past week. On March 1, five civilians who were near the tower were killed after a missile strike on the TV tower.
Genichesk is a port city in the Kherson region. Many Ukrainian citizens love it for the summer vacations on the Azov Sea shore. On February 24, Russian troops, entering the town, killed three civilians. An engineer from a separate battalion, Vitaly Skakun, blew up a bridge in Genichesk at the cost of his life. By this action, he cut off Russian equipment from the city.
Okhtyrka is a small town in Sumy region, where a little girl died under shelling on February 26. Russian army directed banned vacuum bomb was to the city, striking the CHP and the train station.
Kherson is a regional center in southern Ukraine, where Russian soldiers fired on an ambulance, the driver and the wounded man died on the spot. Thirteen people were killed in the first day of the attack in the region, four of them are children. The occupiers lured people out ostensibly for evacuation and used them as human shields to further seize territories. Russian marauders ransacked and emptied stores. And today the occupiers have mined the city and the residents have no way to go to a grocery store or shelter because at any moment their lives could be cut short by a land mine.
Zhytomyr is now the westernmost city that the Russian army has reached. An airstrike on a residential sector of the city killed 2 people and injured many. The shooting came from the territory of Belarus from Iskander missile systems. Part of the city was wiped out.
Vasylkiv is a small town near Kyiv where terrorists shelled dormitories. People were killed under the fire. On February 27, Russia struck an oil depot and a fire broke out.
Mariupol is a city of regional importance on the coast of the Azov Sea in the Donetsk region. When it failed to take the city by storm, Russian troops opened fire on Mariupol’s infrastructure, and there were injuries. On March 1, residential neighborhoods and a school came under fire, killing one person. On March 2, another school was shelled. On March 3, the Epicenter shopping center burned to the ground.
Izyum is a city in the Kharkiv region that, like Kharkiv, is under endless shelling. On March 2, a minute before midnight, terrorists bombed a high-rise building and a nearby private sector: 8 people were killed and dozens injured. On March 3, 34 civilians were killed, 285 people were wounded, 10 of them children in Izyum and neighboring settlements.
Dozens of civilians and children are killed every day in villages and towns in the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Kyiv, Odessa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Donetsk regions. And in many towns, unarmed people throw themselves at the occupiers’ equipment, blow up bridges, and block roads. Inhabitants greet the Russian army with abusive language, Molotov cocktails and Ukrainian flags. And when the Moscow Kremlin says, “there is no threat to the civilians,” in every Ukrainian city the inhabitants become the main target of the occupier, bringing destruction and war to the lives of civilians.