In Kyiv's middle-class suburbs, people are trapped and desperate
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A volunteer waits to the end of curfew in a basement of a building in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 7, 2022.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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KYIV (BLOOMBERG) - A cluster of towns built among fir and oak woodlands to the north-west of Kyiv have long attracted the capital's middle class. Now they've been turned into places of utter desperation.
Russian forces encroaching on Kyiv in a bid to encircle the city of 2.9 million have flooded into the suburban towns whose names are fast becoming synonymous with suffering.
From the first day of the invasion ordered by President Vladimir Putin, Russian troops aimed for Hostomel, which hosts a strategic airfield used by the world's largest airplane, the An-225 "Mriya", or "Dream", now destroyed.
Heavy fighting soon engulfed the nearby towns of Irpin, Bucha and Vorzel. Thousands of residents are trapped in the basements of their homes and villas, fearing for their lives.
As Ukraine tries to establish localised ceasefires to allow the evacuation of civilians, the people of these once-desirable neighbourhoods are desperate to get out. For some, it's already too late.
The plight of the people just outside Kyiv shows the toll on civilians across the country after almost two weeks of fighting.
While Russia maintains it is targeting military assets, the Ukrainian government accuses the Kremlin of deliberately firing on residential areas in a bid to grind down not just Ukraine's army but also its people too.
In Hostomel, about 30km from central Kyiv, town council head Yuriy Prylypko and his two assistants were shot while distributing food to local residents, the town's council said on Facebook on Monday (March 7).
The nearby town of Bucha is in ruins, according to Ms Mykhaylyna Skoryk-Shkarivska, an adviser to the mayor. Mobile communications and electricity are down, and there has been no contact with Mayor Anatolii Fedoruk since midday last Saturday.
Russia has "destroyed my life, my beloved job and is killing my friends every day and colleagues just now", Ms Skoryk-Shkarivska wrote on Facebook on Sunday.
In Irpin, which is under heavy siege by Russian forces, civilians came under live fire on Sunday while evacuating. The moment was caught on camera by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty crew and posted on Facebook, showing the death of a woman and her two children, while a man was seriously injured.
With the carnage set to mount, there was still no agreement on humanitarian corridors as at Monday. Two previous attempts to allow non-combatants to leave the southern port city of Mariupol collapsed amid recriminations on both sides.
<p>TOPSHOT - This general view shows destroyed Russian armored vehicles in the city of Bucha, west of Kyiv, on March 4, 2022. - The UN Human Rights Council on March 4, 2022, overwhelmingly voted to create a top-level investigation into violations committed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. More than 1.2 million people have fled Ukraine into neighbouring countries since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24, United Nations figures showed on March 4, 2022. (Photo by ARIS MESSINIS / AFP)</p>
PHOTO: AFP
Ukraine rejected a Russian proposal overnight to evacuate people from war zones in Ukraine to Belarus and Russia, asking instead for humanitarian corridors to other areas in Ukraine.
In Bucha, a town of about 37,000 inhabitants situated on the river of the same name, people are hiding in their basements, seeking shelter from bombs and indiscriminate killings.
"In our little town we don't have any army buildings but there's intense shelling daily," Mr Oleksandr Ostapa, a Bucha resident who is a communications manager with the UN Population Fund, said in an audio message sent by Telegram in the short period when he was able to get online.
Many buildings in Bucha are on fire or destroyed by missiles. People do not dare to leave their basements and have not had any water or electricity for days.
"We don't know if these people will be still alive in a day or two," Mr Ostapa said.
Russia says that it targets only military structures and is hitting them with high precision.
In a video address on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian forces are "holding hostage the residents of Irpin, Bucha, Hostomel and many other cities and towns, villages, which the occupiers managed to capture - temporarily".
Such actions, including Russian shelling of civilian areas, makes "no military sense whatsoever", he said. "Just terror."
