Berliner Boersenzeitung - Ukrainians run for their lives from Russian bombs

EUR -
AED 4.305338
AFN 82.06272
ALL 98.237936
AMD 450.393493
ANG 2.098009
AOA 1075.016948
ARS 1470.680962
AUD 1.797024
AWG 2.110175
AZN 1.983107
BAM 1.953774
BBD 2.365547
BDT 142.93544
BGN 1.954895
BHD 0.441975
BIF 3447.79123
BMD 1.172319
BND 1.49786
BOB 8.095605
BRL 6.386209
BSD 1.171685
BTN 100.346945
BWP 15.64238
BYN 3.834157
BYR 22977.459406
BZD 2.35338
CAD 1.602971
CDF 3383.313846
CHF 0.933225
CLF 0.02883
CLP 1106.352775
CNY 8.410277
CNH 8.42339
COP 4749.804278
CRC 592.290873
CUC 1.172319
CUP 31.066463
CVE 110.903791
CZK 24.644504
DJF 208.344591
DKK 7.460916
DOP 70.456182
DZD 152.007489
EGP 58.242939
ERN 17.58479
ETB 159.933661
FJD 2.636253
FKP 0.859711
GBP 0.86312
GEL 3.177044
GGP 0.859711
GHS 12.182471
GIP 0.859711
GMD 83.80846
GNF 10147.596282
GTQ 9.004893
GYD 245.128359
HKD 9.202596
HNL 30.890898
HRK 7.534144
HTG 153.770547
HUF 400.114596
IDR 19071.291307
ILS 3.926297
IMP 0.859711
INR 100.476971
IQD 1535.738358
IRR 49383.952848
ISK 142.976378
JEP 0.859711
JMD 187.000874
JOD 0.831119
JPY 172.073319
KES 151.812611
KGS 102.519814
KHR 4713.896336
KMF 492.958703
KPW 1055.085172
KRW 1609.863899
KWD 0.358155
KYD 0.976429
KZT 608.778724
LAK 25263.481573
LBP 105039.814409
LKR 352.213783
LRD 235.049299
LSL 20.856085
LTL 3.461554
LVL 0.709124
LYD 6.338456
MAD 10.556737
MDL 19.830198
MGA 5193.374785
MKD 61.52552
MMK 2460.949065
MNT 4207.234357
MOP 9.473761
MRU 46.546912
MUR 52.883124
MVR 18.059126
MWK 2035.735816
MXN 21.830638
MYR 4.971796
MZN 74.981553
NAD 20.855816
NGN 1798.419923
NIO 43.082789
NOK 11.836006
NPR 160.556879
NZD 1.95685
OMR 0.450755
PAB 1.171595
PEN 4.155281
PGK 4.835818
PHP 66.343887
PKR 333.231604
PLN 4.243784
PYG 9337.556324
QAR 4.267948
RON 5.07274
RSD 117.113572
RUB 92.024727
RWF 1681.105959
SAR 4.396635
SBD 9.773538
SCR 16.526453
SDG 703.96548
SEK 11.167385
SGD 1.500469
SHP 0.921259
SLE 26.37312
SLL 24582.955062
SOS 669.993468
SRD 43.755059
STD 24264.643796
SVC 10.251632
SYP 15242.341676
SZL 20.855855
THB 38.193915
TJS 11.253606
TMT 4.114841
TND 3.418564
TOP 2.745692
TRY 46.955992
TTD 7.948825
TWD 34.142046
TZS 3095.148215
UAH 48.938405
UGX 4211.632726
USD 1.172319
UYU 47.042423
UZS 14917.763773
VES 131.637158
VND 30638.566407
VUV 139.299685
WST 3.212728
XAF 655.288674
XAG 0.032061
XAU 0.000355
XCD 3.168252
XDR 0.814327
XOF 652.98208
XPF 119.331742
YER 283.525203
ZAR 20.857062
ZMK 10552.277921
ZMW 28.38157
ZWL 377.486355
  • CMSC

    0.0900

    22.314

    +0.4%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    22.285

    +0.11%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    69.04

    0%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    10.74

    +0.37%

  • RELX

    0.0300

    53

    +0.06%

  • RIO

    -0.1400

    59.33

    -0.24%

  • GSK

    0.1300

    41.45

    +0.31%

  • NGG

    0.2700

    71.48

    +0.38%

  • BP

    0.1750

    30.4

    +0.58%

  • BTI

    0.7150

    48.215

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    0.7900

    91.02

    +0.87%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.13

    +0.15%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    9.85

    +0.1%

  • BCE

    -0.0600

    22.445

    -0.27%

  • RYCEF

    0.1000

    12

    +0.83%

  • AZN

    -0.1200

    73.71

    -0.16%

Ukrainians run for their lives from Russian bombs
Ukrainians run for their lives from Russian bombs

Ukrainians run for their lives from Russian bombs

Exploding shells blew apart roadsides Saturday and Russian warplanes bombed stretches of the horizon as thousands of Ukrainians scrambled to escape Kyiv’s war-shattered outskirts by any means possible.

Text size:

The roads on Kyiv's western edge bear witness to a human tragedy whose scale grows ever greater as Russia's assault on the Ukrainian capital becomes more determined and indiscriminate.

The Russian forces' initial assault on Kyiv -– launched with missile strikes and an airborne assault on an airbase -- stalled at the end of last week.

The two sides have since been locked in a long-range shelling war along Kyiv's outskirts that has put working class towns such as Bucha and Irpin in the line of fire.

But people fleeing the two towns said their resolve to stay broke down when Russian warplanes started circling overhead and dropping bombs on Friday.

"Warplanes. They are bombing residential areas -- schools, churches, big buildings, everything," accountant Natalia Dydenko said after a quick glance back at the destruction she left behind.

The 58-year-old was one of thousands of people walking with their children and whatever belongings they could carry down a road leading toward central Kyiv and away from the front.

The metric booms of Russia bombs dropped from warplanes circling over Bucha and Irpin provided a morbid backdrop for their desperate march.

"It began two days ago. It wasn’t as heavy before, but two days ago it started getting really heavy," she said.

- 'We had to run' -

People were trying to get to the remains of a bridge leading to Kyiv over the Irpin River which Ukrainian forces blew up last week to stall the Russian advance.

Ukrainian soldiers with assault rifles swinging off their shoulders helped wheelchair-bound pensioners and mothers with prams cross a few wooden planks tossed over the river on Saturday.

Thousands of people massed in stony silence under the shattered remains of the original concrete bridge while awaiting their turn to pass.

A group of soldiers was digging anti-tank missile launchers into foxholes on the Kyiv side of the river.

Another group was preparing new supplies of shoulder-launched missiles and Kalashnikovs that could be ferried back across the wooden planks toward the front.

A long-range missile whistled overhead.

A hollow thud about half a minute later signalled still more destruction somewhere in the general vicinity of northern Kyiv.

"We were waiting it out. But yesterday, when a plane flew by and dropped something on us, we simply had to run," said Galina Vasylchenko, walking with her 30-year-old daughter toward the makeshift bridge.

- Shift in tactics -

The seeming shift in Russia's strategy from shelling to aerial bombings is a bad omen for the Ukrainian capital.

Russian warplanes have bombed and killed dozens in the central town of Chernihiv and the eastern city of Kharkiv in the past week.

Many analysts felt that Kyiv's heritage -- as well as a plethora of churches that answer to the Moscow patriarchate -- would keep Russia from bombing the city of three million people.

But the destruction is creeping closer to Kyiv.

The town of Bucha -- the further out of the two towns -- had witnessed the first fighting and parts of the area are now all but razed to the ground.

That same level of violence is now raining down on Irpin.

A supermarket and petrol station that on Friday stood at a large junction on the border between Bucha and Irpin was just ruins on Saturday.

Soldiers were ushering the fleeing residents onto buses on the Kyiv side of the Irpin River because walking on that part of the city's streets was no longer safe.

- 'Nowhere to go' -

Thousands more piled their belongings into cars and tried to get out of Irpin by taking a circuitous route that leads to Kyiv's main train station from the southwest.

A queue of cars stretching at least five kilometres (three miles) snaked its way past dozens of sandbagged checkpoints manned by armed Ukrainian volunteers in western Kyiv on Saturday.

Many had signs reading "children" taped to their windshields.

"They have nowhere to go," she said. "But it is very unsafe to stay."

(T.Renner--BBZ)