Mariupol: Galina Vasilyeva looks around at the ruins of the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol that she once helped to build.
Pointing towards a charred nine-storey building, the retired construction worker with bright red hair says: “There are burnt corpses in there.”
“All these buildings were built by my generation. And now they have bombed everything, ” says 78-year-old Vasilyeva, as she queues for humanitarian aid distributed by pro-Russia separatists.
The strategic port city was encircled by Russian troops early on in what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine. Conquering the city would connect Russia-controlled Crimea to the territories of Moscow-backed separatists in the eastern Donbas region.
Over a month later, Ukraine’s forces continue resisting from inside the city’s giant metallurgical and heavy machinery plants, but are struggling to hold the city with a population of around 500, 000 people.
While the official death toll is unknown, thousands of civilians are believed to have died in the besieged city while others have survived with hardly any food or water and no electricity.