Civilians flee from Kherson as Russian attacks intensify
Moments earlier, they'd hugged, tears welling up in their eyes. Inna had kissed Asia, and a tan dachshund dog wrapped up in a warm blanket, carried by Nika in her arms.
The girls didn't know when they might see each other again.
Nika's family was leaving Kherson, unsure where they would end up eventually. They were heading to the western city of Khmelnytskyi, hoping they would get some help there.
The past few days in Kherson had been too much for Nika's mother, Elena.
"Before they [Russian forces] shelled us seven to 10 times a day, now it's 70-80 times, all day long. It's too scary." Elena said. "I love Ukraine and my beloved city. But we have to go."
Elena and her three daughters are among over four hundred people who have left Kherson since Christmas Day, after a sharp increase in the intensity of the bombardment of the city by the Russian military.
Elena left by train in an evacuation facilitated by the Ukrainian government.
Hundreds of people are leaving on their own, a queue of cars building up at the checkpoint leading out of Kherson, filled with terrified civilians.
Iryna Antonenko was in tears when we walked to her car to speak to her.
'We can't take it anymore. The shelling is so intense. We stayed this whole time and thought it would pass and that we would be lucky. But a strike hit the house next to ours, and my father's home was also shelled," she said.
She planned to travel to Kryvyi Rih, a city in central Ukraine where she has a family.
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