For the first time, Ukraine’s eastern city of Dnipro was woken by the stomach-churning wail of an air raid siren today.
By 10:00 local time (08:00 GMT) there’d been two – sending this city underground into bunkers, basements, and garages. Some people had spent the night there with their children and pets.
The trigger for the alarm isn’t clear. There’s no direct assault on Dnipro but people are getting increasingly nervous as fighting to the south, north, and east intensifies.
Armed patrols in the city now stop cars at random to check for potential Russian saboteurs. Yesterday we met families who’d fled heavy clashes in the town of Volnovakha, a key spot on the road south from Russia-controlled Donetsk to the port of Mariupol that Vladimir Putin’s forces are battling to control.
The women and children were safe, given food and clothes and refuge, but deeply shaken. There’d been pro-Russian forces some 30km (19 miles) east of their town since 2014. But it hadn’t directly affected them until President Putin openly ordered Russian troops across the border.
Only days ago, Nadezhda ran a pedicure salon – her son went to nursery and they both felt safe. Then a shell hit their neighbor’s shed, and they fled west.
I’ve since met another mother here in Dnipro whose daughter is fighting in Volnovakha with the Ukrainian military. She showed me a photo, clearly proud but also in tears. She’s terrified that Russian troops are about to overrun the town in their push to the south, and she feels utterly powerless.
Source: BBC
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