KYIV: The streets of central Kyiv lay almost deserted in the winter sunshine on Sunday (Feb 27), with residents ordered to stay in shelters as Russian forces continued to shell the city’s outskirts, although some were still trying to leave despite the curfew.
On the fourth day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the capital was still in Ukrainian government hands, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy rallying his people despite Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure.
At Kyiv’s main railway station, hundreds of stranded passengers waited for trains to take them west, away from the fighting, watched over by a heavy guard of black-clad police armed with assault rifles.
The United Nations said nearly 400,000 people have fled abroad since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion.
James from Cameroon, who worked in Kyiv as a chef for the past decade, said he wanted to go to west Ukraine and stay there until the end of hostilities.
“Where do I go? To Europe and be treated as a migrant? Here is all I have, apartment, everything,” he said, declining to give his full name.
Lisa, a mother of two children aged three and five, hauled heavy bags across station’s main hall. She and her mother also wanted to go to western Ukraine.
“Away from here, until this stops and then we will come back,” she said. “My husband is a reservist and all our (male) relatives joined the TO (Territorial Defense).”
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