Townsville Bulletin

LOVE IS ONE THING PUTIN CAN’T KILL

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MARIUPOL: There were tender reunions and tales of terror for Ukrainian refugees at an evacuation point for people fleeing the battered city of Mariupol, which has been the focus of a sustained Russian assault for more than a month.

The first survivors evacuated from Mariupol’s Azovstal steel factory over the weekend have described their ordeal living in undergroun­d bunkers while besieged by Russian forces.

“Two months of darkness,” Natalia Usmanova said. “The shelling was so strong as it kept hitting near us. At the exit of the bomb shelter, on top of a few stairs, one could not breathe as there was not enough oxygen.”

She said she had reminded her husband they would no longer have to find their way to the lavatory with a torch now they were free. “I told my husband: Vasya, we don’t need to go to the toilet with a flashlight, not to use a bag, a bin.”

A video of the evacuation shows women and children clambering up a ladder and being escorted through an apocalypti­c landscape by Ukrainian soldiers. Hundreds more wait their turn to leave undergroun­d fortificat­ions scattered across the industrial complex.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian soldier Hryhoril was finally reunited with his wife Oksana, whom he had not seen for nearly a year after she fled the Russian-occupied Noovomykha­ilivka village and arrived by car at the Zaporizhzh­ia evacuation point.

 ?? ?? Ukrainian soldier Hryhoril kisses his wife Oksana after being reunited at an evacuation point for people fleeing the southern city of Mariupol. Picture: Getty Images
Ukrainian soldier Hryhoril kisses his wife Oksana after being reunited at an evacuation point for people fleeing the southern city of Mariupol. Picture: Getty Images

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