“A jeep was completely smashed. A few minutes later, we noticed a white Niva [car] that had been blown into a ditch, also damaged by a drone attack. Another couple of hundred metres and another smashed jeep, right next to a religious cross,” the correspondent wrote.
“We then saw a burnt-out white car. The blow had been dealt recently as the wreck was still smoking.”
People who had fled the fighting also told the Kommersant correspondent how their increasingly panicked phone calls to emergency hotlines went unanswered as the Ukrainian military advanced and their villages were destroyed.
They also said that they had been forced to leave old and disabled people behind in the rush to flee, despite a lack of food and running water in the town.
One woman said that she was ashamed of the Russian military, which she described as a “corrupt mess”.
“I thought we would take them, but it turns out they are taking us,” she said of the Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “Who made these plans anyway? Maybe we shouldn’t have sent the guys to Kiyv right away?”