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Kyiv, the capital city of Ukraine, experienced heavy bombing from Russian military forces Wednesday night.
There is a chance the city could soon fall to Russian troops, becoming the second major city to do so, after Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine, came under Russian control on Wednesday.
Russia has reportedly been increasingly targeting civilians, and casualties are rising. More than 2,000 civilians have been killed so far, according to the Ukrainian government, though the actual number is unclear.
Russian military forces were seen encircling Kyiv earlier Wednesday, besieging the city and cutting it off from electricity, medicine, water, and heat. Kyiv alone reportedly has 15,000 people sleeping in subways, The New York Times reported.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and the port city of Mariupol, are also under attack.
CBS international correspondent Charlie D’Agata said in a video showing bright flashes in the sky that he’s experiencing the biggest blasts he’s ever seen.
Biggest blasts we've ever seen, just as we were coming off air tonight in #Kyiv #cbsnews @charliecbs @cbsnews pic.twitter.com/leIfTrdnXx
— Justine Redman (@redmanjustine) March 3, 2022
Other videos and photos shared on Twitter captured the blasts as well.
One of the strikes in Kyiv tonight pic.twitter.com/Fxaxb4dlzf
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) March 3, 2022
The bombing in Kyiv tonight looks particularly brutal. pic.twitter.com/GFy1wcVuCk
— Justin Ling (Has Left) (@Justin_Ling) March 3, 2022
bombing in kyiv, civilians panic. Protecting and not going out is the best for the moment pic.twitter.com/aHNf6PcJ5G
— ODESSA (@mabus32) March 3, 2022
Latest – Air raid alerts in Kyiv
— WTX News UK (@WtxNews) March 3, 2022
Independence square is lit up#GBNews #Latestnews #UkraineRussia #RussiaInvasion #Kyiv #UkraineRussiaWar https://t.co/nHGL04YepB pic.twitter.com/huegXF7ydB
A video from the The New York Times shows what it was like for Ukrainians sleeping in Kyiv’s subways Wednesday night.
“I’m on the subway now and it’s terrible how many kids are there,” Sofiya, a Kyiv resident, says. “We want to live in an independent, normal country. I hope all this violence and cruelness ends soon.”
Subway was built to be a bomb shelter. Ukraine has taken refuge in the Kyiv railroad system to escape bombing and artillery fire as #Russian forces advance on #Ukraine’s capital, according to officials in #Kyiv.
— CatManDoo (@CatManDoo18) March 3, 2022
pic.twitter.com/uxGV4IPaGW
CNN’s Anderson Cooper spoke to a former general Wednesday night about the military difficulties of invading a city.
Retired General David Petraeus explains the difficulties of urban combat and outlines the challenges the Russians could face as they press closer to #Kyiv.
— Jaro Giesbrecht (@JaroGiesbrecht) March 3, 2022
“They don’t have the numbers.” #Ukrainepic.twitter.com/0pDQHfuiEg
Earlier Wednesday, CNN spoke to Tata Marharian, a member of the Ukrainian Volunteer Medical Battalion, about what she’s seeing on the ground.
“I’m seeing dead children. I’m seeing hospitals being bombed. I’m seeing churches being bombed,” she said.
“It’s difficult. I don’t know what to tell you. You wanna know what I’m seeing? I’m seeing my people die.”
Marharian said she was studying international humanitarianism at a university before the war, but never expected to see it with her own eyes in her own country.
Marharian also said she’s sure Russian forces are intentionally attacking civilians. She said she saw them attacking evacuation buses earlier in the day.
“There’s no way it was by accident,” she said.
Still, Marharian said, she feels she and others fighting and working as medics are making a big difference.
“I’ve never felt happier to be Ukrainian. I’ve never felt more lucky to be born in this country,” she said.
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