Ex-actor Ix Shen leaving Kyiv with wife as fighting intensifies

Twelve days after Russia invaded the country he has called home for the last four months, Singaporean Ix Shen is leaving Kyiv and moving to an area west of Ukraine's capital.

In the latest of his daily Instagram updates yesterday, the 50-year-old former actor, who lives in the Podil district in Kyiv with his Ukrainian wife, said he has decided to move as the figh-ting intensifies.

"We are safe and okay. Based on our latest information, we have decided it is not in our best interest to live extensively underground during the next phase of fighting.

"So, we will be evacuating from Kyiv... And we are planning and moving as we go along.

"We will be safe and okay."

He is seen in front of a parked car in the video he posted online.

This comes a week after he said he had no plans to leave the country, and reassured his followers on Instagram that all was well with him and his family.

Mr Shen told The Straits Times last week that when the air raid siren is sounded or when shooting is heard, he and his wife and other residents would take shelter in the basement carpark in their Soviet-era nine-floor apartment building.

Other residents would hide out in the stairwells, he added.

As at Feb 28, Mr Shen said his wife, a medical officer with a Ukrainian reserve unit, had not been called up for duty.

More than two million people have fled Ukraine since the war erupted on Feb 24.