🇺🇦 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'
🚨Vladimir Putin could use chemical weapons to break the siege of Mariupol.
Warnings from the US of “clear signs” Russia is considering using chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine have raised the spectre of gas attacks🧵👇 telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…
⚠️There are fears Ukraine may soon experience scenes all too familiar from Syria…
…where witnesses described watching helplessly as their loved ones choked to death after chemical weapons were used
🗣️“The thing about Putin is, if he has an instrument, he wants to use it. Why have it if you can’t?” Fiona Hill, the British-born Russia expert and former White House advisor said last month
I’ve been speaking to a dozen female police officers in the last year for a documentary called Bad Apples, writes @cjmcgoogan
They have told me male cops aren’t just assaulting members of the public – but also their own.
🔴Female police officers describe being the target of misogyny from their colleagues along a spectrum from sexist banter to bullying, domestic abuse and sexual assault, including rape
🚢Italy has been urged to seize a superyacht allegedly owned by Vladimir Putin after an investigation by the anti-corruption unit of Alexei Navalny, Russia's jailed opposition leader
🔴 Russian accusations that Kyiv has biological and chemical weapons are false and illustrate that Putin is considering using them himself in his war against Ukraine, the US President has said.
🚢The £500m vessel, called Scheherazade, could be sanctioned as investigation reveals staff are from Russia’s security service twitter.com/i/events/15061…
Key developments from overnight:
🔴Russian forces shell along humanitarian corridor
🔴Zelensky: Ukraine would be 'destroyed' before surrender
🔴For almost a month, the port - its remaining 300,000 population now trapped - has been on the receiving end of a “hellish” Russian bombardment...
...that has flattened much of it and left its remaining residents without water, food and power
The last diplomat to leave said Mariupol could now be added to an unwanted list of cities “destroyed by war” that includes Guernica, Stalingrad and Grozny