The Angel of Orikhiv: Deputy mayor, refusing to evacuate, organizes aid for her Ukrainian town

In one destroyed town in southern Ukraine, a handful of residents remain despite evacuation recommendations, including a deputy mayor nicknamed the 'Angel of Orikhiv.'

In a landscape of ruins in southern Ukraine, battered and punished by a year of Russian bombardment, the town of Orikihiv stands out as much for the regular pounding it endures as the stamina, suffering and resistance of those who remain.

For months, the mayor of the town has been urging residents to evacuate in order to protect themselves from Russian advances.

But his deputy mayor, Svitlana Mandrych, refuses to leave the town.

Instead, she has turned the basement of the city hall into an aid centre, offering food and shelter to all who come, in the process earning the nickname the Unbreakable Angel of Orikhiv.

As a woman, it makes it her feel more self-assured and courageous when she hears the nickname, she told CTV National News, acknowledging that she’s also often very afraid.

Fourteen thousand people lived in Orikhiv before the Russians invaded Ukraine. Now, maybe 1,200 are left. Those still in the town tend to be the old and the poor, clinging to lives that no longer exist, and refusing or unable to leave.

Volunteers deliver water in the town firetruck under the threat of attack from Russian artillery, just a few kilometres away, bringing the precious resource into dark basements where neighbourhood tanks are filled and shared.