"I was in a five-storey building, she explained , speaking from a centre for the displaced in nearby Kharkiv. I don't know whether it was a Russian missile or bomb that hit the building but it started a fire, and when the flames reached my floor, I was stuck because the door was damaged and I couldn't escape. The Ukrainian military, she said, saved her life."
"But by then much of Kupiansk, which had a prewar population of 27,000, had departed. In the months before I left there were a few shops working, she said. But that last month, almost everything closed. All the social services were evacuated. Amid the focus on the Donbas region further south and its cities, including Pokrovsk, Kupiansk in the northern Kharkiv region on the Oskil river has drawn less attention."
Lyubov Lobunets, 77, left her Kupiansk home in August after a Russian explosive struck her five-storey building, trapping her when flames blocked her exit until Ukrainian forces rescued her. Kupiansk had a prewar population of about 27,000 but two years of fighting emptied shops, closed social services and wrecked hillside homes and riverside fields. Many residents delayed evacuation because of low pensions and fear of where to live and how to manage. Some remained despite compulsory evacuation orders as street fighting encroached. Kupiansk has attracted less attention than southern Donbas cities despite steady destruction.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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