A 98-year-old Ukrainian lady has stated she walked 10km (six miles) beneath shelling to flee the Russia-controlled area of Donetsk.
Utilizing strolling sticks to help her, Lidia Stepanivna says she fell a number of occasions throughout her journey from Ocheretyne and was pressured to sleep on the bottom
“I survived that conflict [Second World War], and I’m surviving this conflict,” she stated.
Ms Stepanivna stated she had no meals or water, however that her “character” saved her going as she tried to succeed in areas managed by Kyiv.
In a video posted on-line by Ukraine’s police, she is proven sitting on a mattress in a shelter, wearing an outsized coat and a shawl tied on her head, a wood stick nonetheless in her hand.
“I am left with nothing,” she stated.
“However I left my Ukraine on ft.”
Ms Stepanivna shares a joke with a Ukrainian officer
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She stated the conflict Russia was waging in opposition to her nation was nothing just like the Second World Warfare.
“Homes are burning and timber are being uprooted,” she stated.
Ukraine’s inside ministry stated in an announcement that the lady was found by Ukraine’s navy within the night, earlier than being handed to the police, who took her to a shelter for evacuees.
“Regulation enforcement officers are searching for the lady’s family,” the ministry stated.
It was not instantly clear when she was found.
The conflict, now in its third 12 months, has killed 1000’s on each side and turned Ukrainian cities and villages into rubble and displaced hundreds of thousands of individuals.
