IRPIN (NYTIMES) – The bridge was only a shell of its previous self, blown up days earlier by Ukrainian troopers intent on slowing the Russian advance on the capital, Kyiv, however battered because it was, it supplied a lifeline to civilians determined to flee the combating.
On Sunday (March 6), as Ukrainian refugees had been milling close to the doorway to the construction, calculating their odds of constructing it safely over the Irpin River, a household laden with backpacks and a blue curler suitcase determined to likelihood it.
The Russian mortars hit simply as they made it throughout into Kyiv.
A cloud of concrete mud lofted into the morning air. When it settled, Ukrainians may very well be seen operating madly from the scene.
But not the household. A mom and her two youngsters lay nonetheless on the roadway, together with a household pal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied that his forces are focusing on civilians fleeing battle zones. He did so once more on Sunday, a day after a railroad monitor used to evacuate Ukrainians got here beneath fireplace.
But solely a handful of Ukrainian troops had been close to the bridge when mortar shells started raining down. The troopers there weren’t engaged in fight however in serving to refugees carry their youngsters and baggage towards the capital.
“The military is the military and that is one thing,” one soldier mentioned bitterly. “But these are civilians, people who waited until the last moment.”
The assault on the bridge was witnessed by a New York Times staff, together with photojournalist Lynsey Addario. Since Saturday, a whole lot of Ukrainians fleeing the combating in three cities on Kyiv’s western rim have clustered across the bridge to make their technique to the capital. Civilians who cross the bridge into Kyiv type small teams and collectively run about 90m whereas doubtlessly uncovered to Russian fireplace.
But early on Sunday morning, the regional governor introduced that the routes out of Irpin had been so unsafe as to be successfully blocked. But folks stored making an attempt, scrambling over the particles of the broken bridge and dashing throughout the uncovered avenue.
When the mortar shells hit, Ukrainian forces had been engaged in clashes close by, however not the place the civilians had been shifting alongside the road on the Kyiv facet of the bridge. Outgoing mortar rounds may very well be heard from a Ukrainian place about 180m away.
Follow The Straits Times’ reside protection on the Ukraine disaster right here.
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