Fighting talk of the brave who won’t quit
UKRAINIANS who have refused to flee their country have described the horror unfolding on their streets.
Human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties, remains on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Between air raids, her team is compiling a database of alleged
Russian war crimes.
One video they are attempting to verify shows Russian soldiers apparently transporting weapons in a vehicle disguised as an ambulance.
She said: “I have never worked so hard in my life. How much sleep I get depends on the intensity of the shelling... and my nerves.”
Oleksandra wants NATO to implement a no-fly zone. “We say to the West, ‘Do more’. We are dying while we wait for you to make decisions.”
Her calls were echoed by Inna Sovsun, MP and deputy leader of pro-European Holos party, who fears she will be killed before she can be reunited with her son.
She has remained in Kyiv – armed with an AK47 – while nineyear-old Martyn has been taken to safety.
She said: “I just want my son to have a country. I don’t want him to say, ‘I’m a refugee from
Ukraine blown up by Putin’.” MP Sviatolav Yurash, 26, left, said: “I have now been in a shootout. I’m no soldier, but I am getting better. I was born in an independent Ukraine and I’ll die in an independent Ukraine.” Oleksiy Sorokin, also 26, of media organisation Kyiv Independent, drove his dad and siblings to western Ukraine. He said: “You can still feel the war. People are looking for shelter.”