As Russia closes in on Kharkiv, some residents flee. Others will never leave
A 79-year-old woman makes the sign of the cross and, gripping her cane, leaves her home in a quaint village in northeastern Ukraine.
Torn screens, shattered glass and scorched trees litter the yard of Olha Faichuk’s apartment building in Lukiantsi, north of the city of Kharkiv. Abandoned on a nearby bench is a shrapnel-pierced mobile phone. It belonged to one of two people who were killed when a Russian bomb struck, leaving a blackened crater in its wake.
“God forgive me for leaving my home, bless me on my way,” Olha says, taking one last look around before slowly shuffling to an evacuation vehicle.
In contrast to the embattled frontline villages further east, the border
