Thread by @Telegraph

📔 My Mariupol diary: ‘A shell crushed the family next door. Just bury them in the garden, they told us’.

Olga Bolgova tells how she and her family were pitched into an unimaginable new life in a city under siege. 👇

Thread 🧵
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…

🇺🇦 When Russia invaded Ukraine late last month, Olga Bolgova and her family suddenly found themselves fighting to survive under siege.

Here she recounts how she, along with her husband Aleksey, and children Artem and Arina, faced Russian bombardment before escaping last week ⬇️

📅 Feb 24 [First day of the Russian invasion]

'It's only 7:30am outside and it's already a mess: ATMs, water, shops. My family say don't panic. I don’t seem to panic, but I went for groceries.'

'Well, I think it will be over in a couple of days.'

📅 March 5 [Five days after Mariupol blockade begins]

'Some neighbours went down to the basement, a shell hit and crushed everyone!'

'They asked what to do with the dead. They said bury them in the gardens. We’ll exhume later'

📅 March 6

'At 5.50am, heavy shelling. The doors are rattling and shaking very loudly again. Nauseous. The three of us went to the toilet. It looks like the sewer will clog up soon'

📅 March 8

'The 14th day of the war and the 10th day of the Mariupol blockade. Down to the fires, with pots, leftover food and eggs'.

'There was nothing on the news at 9pm. It seems Mariupol is of no interest to anyone'

📅 March 10

'At 3am they began to bomb hard. We hugged each other with Arina and pressed against the floor as hard as we could. A nightmare until 4:30am. Then after five they started again. The building is on fire again'

🗣️ 'Like from a disaster movie. There was a street with broken houses, and near one of the broken houses there was a fresh grave.

'People are just lying on the streets'

📅 March 15

'Tonight it was clear that we had to get out. They were shelling near us all night until 5am. Bodies are everywhere. In a big queue, an endless quantity of cars driving out of the city'

'God please help us to drive to Zaporizhzhya'.

Read Olga Bolgova's Mariupol diary in full here 👇
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…