The stark images captured by photographers for The Associated Press on the 13th day of Russia’s war on Ukraine show the enormous toll the assault has taken on the country’s people and infrastructure.
As Russian shelling continued Tuesday, the number of refugees climbed to 2 million people, United Nations officials said. In one AP photo, dozens of Ukrainians push together under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee across the Irpin River on the outskirts of the capital of Kyiv. In another, an elderly woman who’s been squeezed into a small shopping cart rides with her feet dangling over the edge as a man pushes her through the street after being evacuated from the Kyiv suburb of Irpin.
Citizens who were unable to flee amid the incessant attacks crowd into a makeshift bomb shelter in Mariupol. Inside, a young girl sits on a pile of blankets before a cement wall with peeling blue paint, looking out over an open book in her lap. Elsewhere in the shelter, hungry people line up before giant pots filled with food.
Meanwhile, back out on the streets, the fighting continues, its widespread devastation evident everywhere, including in a demolished building in the city of Kharkiv where the tailfin of a crashed Russian bomber plane now sits.
Svetlana, 76, who fled from Odessa, Ukraine, sits at the border crossing in Kroscienko, Poland, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
A man stands atop a destroyed bridge in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
A body lies covered by a tarp in the street in Mariupol, Ukraine, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People sit around a lamp in a bomb shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Two women watch U.S. President Joe Biden making statements on a news channel in a subway station turned into a shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A man plays with a baby in a bomb shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine, Sunday, March 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A woman carries a child in a winter suit, after fleeing Ukraine and arriving at the train station in Przemysl, Poland, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)
A girl sits in an improvised bomb shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People queue to receive hot food in an improvised bomb shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A Ukrainian serviceman walks past the vertical tail fin of a Russian Su-34 bomber lying in a damaged building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Marienko)
People carry an elderly woman as people continue to leave Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
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