Ukrainian Family’s Dash for Safety Ends in Death
Russian forces hit a bridge being used by civilians evacuating the fighting in Ukraine. Four people were killed.
By Lynsey Addario and Andrew E. Kramer
IRPIN, Ukraine — The bridge was just a shell of its old self, blown up days earlier by Ukrainian soldiers intent on slowing the Russian advance on the capital, Kyiv, but battered as it was, it offered a lifeline to civilians desperate to flee the fighting.
On Sunday, as Ukrainian refugees were milling near the entrance to the structure, calculating their odds of making it safely over the Irpin River, a family laden with backpacks and a blue roller suitcase decided to chance it.
The Russian mortar hit just as they made it across into Kyiv.
A cloud of concrete dust lofted into the morning air. When it settled, Ukrainians could be seen running madly from the scene. But not the family. A mother and her two children lay still on the roadway, along with a family friend.
Irpin River
Evacuees huddled under a
destroyed bridge, one of the
main escape routes out of Irpin.
IRPIN
At least four people,
including two children, were
killed by a mortar shell.
Irpin River
P30 road
Irpin
Kyiv
Evacuation route
toward Kyiv
UKRAINE
Source: Satellite imagery via Google Earth
The New York Times
Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, has repeatedly denied that his forces are targeting civilians fleeing battle zones. He did so again on Sunday, a day after a railroad track used to evacuate Ukrainians came under fire.
But only a handful of Ukrainian troops were near the bridge when mortar shells began raining down. The soldiers there were not engaged in combat but in helping refugees carry their children and luggage toward the capital.
“The military is the military and that is one thing,” one soldier said bitterly. “But these are civilians, people who waited until the last moment.”
The attack at the bridge was witnessed by a New York Times team, including the photojournalist Lynsey Addario, a security adviser and Andriy Dubchak, a freelance journalist who filmed the scene.
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Since Saturday, hundreds of Ukrainians fleeing the fighting in three towns on Kyiv’s western rim have clustered around the bridge to make their way to the capital — which is also in Moscow’s cross hairs.
Civilians who cross the bridge into Kyiv form small groups and together run about 100 yards while potentially exposed to Russian fire. Ukrainian soldiers run alongside the civilians to help them and then return to take cover behind a cinder block wall.
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But early Sunday morning, the regional governor announced that the routes out of Irpin were so unsafe as to be effectively blocked. “Unfortunately, unless there is a cease-fire,” he said, no one could get out.
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Evacuation efforts under attack. As Russian forces continued shelling Ukraine, at least four people, including a mother and her two children, were killed outside Kyiv as they tried to get to safety. In the besieged port city of Mariupol, a planned evacuation was halted for a second consecutive day.
But people kept trying, scrambling over the debris of the damaged bridge and dashing across the exposed street.
When the mortar shells hit, Ukrainian forces were engaged in clashes nearby, but not where the civilians were moving along the street on the Kyiv side of the bridge. Outgoing mortar rounds could be heard from a Ukrainian position about 200 yards away, far enough from the bridge to suggest that the Russians were either purposefully targeting the evacuation route or disregarding the risk of civilian casualties.
The Russian mortar shells fell first 100 or so yards from the bridge, then shifted in a series of thunderous blasts into a section of street where people were fleeing.
As the mortars got closer to the stream of civilians, people ran, pulling children, and trying to find a safe spot. But there was nothing behind which to hide.
When the family — a mother, her teenage son and a daughter who appeared to be about 8 — was spotted sprawled on the ground, soldiers rushed to help, but could do little for them or a man described as a family friend who had been helping them escape.
The group’s luggage was scattered about them. A small green pet carrier lay nearby, too. The dog could be heard barking.
Andrew E. Kramer is a reporter based in the Moscow bureau. He was part of a team that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for a series on Russia’s covert projection of power. @AndrewKramerNYT
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Understand What Is Going On
- What does Russia want in Ukraine? Explore the causes of the conflict and the history of the relationship between the two countries.
- Russia’s attack was preceded by months of military buildup on the border with Ukraine and rising tensions. Here is how the invasion unfolded.
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In Ukraine
- Photographers around the country are documenting the effects of the invasion on the ground.
- Thousands of displaced Ukrainians are undertaking a slow journey west. At the Polish border, families are feeling the pain of separation as men are ordered to stay behind.
- Some of Ukraine’s official social media accounts have blurred the line between fact and myth, spreading unverified information and anecdotes that later proved to be false.
In Russia
- Many Ukrainians are facing a backlash from relatives in Russian who believe the official Kremlin messaging that minimizes the war.
- As the war goes on, President Vladimir V. Putin is fighting a parallel battle on the home front, dismantling the last vestiges of a Russian free press.
Around the World
- In a few frantic days, the West threw out the playbook it used for decades against the Kremlin and isolated Russia with unparalleled sanctions and penalties.
- The invasion of Ukraine has shown that Mr. Putin sees Europe’s borders as open to being redrawn by force. And few places feel more vulnerable than Moldova.
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