IRPIN, Ukraine — The bridge was only a shell of its previous self, blown up days earlier by Ukrainian troopers intent on slowing the Russian advance on the capital, Kyiv, however battered because it was, it provided a lifeline to civilians determined to flee the preventing.
On Sunday, as Ukrainian refugees have been milling close to the doorway to the construction, calculating their odds of constructing it safely over the Irpin River, a household laden with backpacks and a blue curler suitcase determined to probability it.
The Russian mortar hit simply as they made it throughout into Kyiv.
A cloud of concrete mud lofted into the morning air. When it settled, Ukrainians may very well be seen operating madly from the scene. But not the household. A mom and her two youngsters lay nonetheless on the roadway, together with a household buddy.
Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, has repeatedly denied that his forces are focusing on civilians fleeing battle zones. He did so once more on Sunday, a day after a railroad monitor used to evacuate Ukrainians got here underneath hearth.
But solely a handful of Ukrainian troops have been close to the bridge when mortar shells started raining down. The troopers there weren’t engaged in fight however in serving to refugees carry their youngsters and baggage towards the capital.
“The military is the military and that is one thing,” one soldier mentioned bitterly. “But these are civilians, people who waited until the last moment.”
The assault on the bridge was witnessed by a New York Times staff, together with the photojournalist Lynsey Addario, a safety adviser and Andriy Dubchak, a contract journalist who filmed the scene.
Since Saturday, a whole bunch of Ukrainians fleeing the preventing in three cities on Kyiv’s western rim have clustered across the bridge to make their strategy to the capital — which can be in Moscow’s cross hairs.
Civilians who cross the bridge into Kyiv type small teams and collectively run about 100 yards whereas probably uncovered to Russian hearth. Ukrainian troopers run alongside the civilians to assist them after which return to take cowl behind a cinder block wall.
But early Sunday morning, the regional governor introduced that the routes out of Irpin have been so unsafe as to be successfully blocked. “Unfortunately, unless there is a cease-fire,” he mentioned, nobody may get out.
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But folks stored attempting, scrambling over the particles of the broken bridge and dashing throughout the uncovered avenue.
When the mortar shells hit, Ukrainian forces have been engaged in clashes close by, however not the place the civilians have been transferring alongside the road on the Kyiv aspect of the bridge. Outgoing mortar rounds may very well be heard from a Ukrainian place about 200 yards away, far sufficient from the bridge to counsel that the Russians have been both purposefully focusing on the evacuation route or disregarding the chance of civilian casualties.
The Russian mortar shells fell first 100 or so yards from the bridge, then shifted in a collection of thunderous blasts into a bit of avenue the place folks have been fleeing.
As the mortars bought nearer to the stream of civilians, folks ran, pulling youngsters, and looking for a secure spot. But there was nothing behind which to cover.
When the household — a mom, her teenage son and a daughter who gave the impression to be about 8 — was noticed sprawled on the bottom, troopers rushed to assist, however may do little for them or a person described as a household buddy who had been serving to them escape.
The group’s baggage was scattered about them. A small inexperienced pet provider lay close by, too. The canine may very well be heard barking.