‘We stormed without support’: Ukraine towns fall to Russia in latest defeat
Al Jazeera
Outmanned and outgunned, Kyiv’s forces struggle to advance against Moscow’s troops as the war drags on.
Kyiv, Ukraine – Armed with two sticks that serve as canes, a 97-year-old Ukrainian woman fled her town in eastern Ukraine to escape advancing Russian troops.
“I survived that war and will survive this one,” Lidya Stepanovna said, referring to World War II and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Huddled up in a woollen shawl and a warm grey coat, she said, in a video released on Monday by Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, that after Russian shelling burned down her house, she had to trudge for 10 hours, gunfire and blasts ringing out behind her.
She fainted and fell twice, but kept getting up and moving on until White Angels, a police unit that evacuates civilians from front-line areas, picked her up.
The woman left Ocheretyne, a Donetsk town with a prewar population of about 3,400 that stands in a lush, flat steppe. The town had been occupied by Nazi Germans between 1941 and 1943 – and fell to Russians earlier this month.
