www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/ninety-per-cent-of-houses-are-damaged-thousands-trapped-in-ukraines-small-towns?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
90% of houses are damaged’: Russia’s Syria-honed tactics lay Ukraine towns to waste
Residents say shelling of Schastia and Volnovakha is revenge for standing up to ‘Russian aggression’
There have been terrible strikes on homes, schools and hospitals around Ukraine. But residents of both towns say the barrage of shelling, rocket assaults and airstrikes since the start of the war has damaged or destroyed nearly every building in their towns, a comprehensive devastation as yet unmatched elsewhere
The Russian flag has now been raised over the ruins of Schastia. In Volnovakha, the attack is still so intense that dead bodies lie uncollected, says local MP Dmytro Lubinets. Ukrainians still brave enough to run rescue missions are going back only for the living.
Thousands of them are trapped in basements, with dwindling supplies of food and water, sheltering from an apparently senseless attack on a town Lubinets says has no military defenders in its centre. The line of contact is 20km away, he says.
And
Before the war, the population of the town was 25,000. Lubinets says at least 3,000 people are trapped, but possibly many more. Hundreds of them are children. Requests for a humanitarian evacuation corridor have gone unanswered, so the military and other volunteers are risking their lives to bring people out in small groups
“We drive under fire to the places where people mostly concentrated, schools, hospitals, grab them out, put them in the car and bring them out, because the shelling never stops at any second,” he said.
“Its impossible to use buses because they have low mobility. Always when you go there you will get punctures, so you just have to drive [the car] out for about 10 minutes to places where big buses can come.”