In the eastern city of Kharkiv, loud blasts sent families down into a station, with backpacks and pets, scrambling to understand what could happen next.
“We had to do something, so we came here,” Stas Dikii, a Kharkiv resident, told The Washington Post from the station, where he went Thursday with his mother and grandmother.
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Around him, people sat on stairs or leaned on trains, scrolling through their phones for news. Others made calls to check on loved ones.
“I’d like to hear in a few hours, or no matter when, some news saying: ‘We have survived. Kharkiv has been saved. Everything’s great,’ ” he said. “But if there’s no such news, we will have to stay here.”
Oksana Nipogodneyeva, who joined the crowds with her mother and two daughters, also wondered how long they would be there. “It’s like living in a different reality, something surreal,” she said.
Her youngest daughter could just understand that “the situation is unusual” and was “still all smiles,” Nipogodneyeva said.
“For now, there’s absolutely nowhere to run,” she told The Post. “We have to wait and see what happens. And hope for the best, for this conflict to be resolved peacefully.”
At another subway station in the capital, more people had hunkered down overnight with their suitcases.
Photos from Kyiv later showed the residents of a damaged building gathered in the basement of a school. Some rested on the floor, and children played cards in the shelter, as Ukrainian troops prepared to fend off the Russian forces pressing closer.
Francis reported from London.
