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AP PHOTO: Day 18: Images show massive destruction

Associated Press

March 13, 2022 GMT

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-3e313c614e7a4c49d88be884d0c676bd

When Russian shells hit Irpin on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, on Sunday two Ukrainian soldiers hid against a wall with their heads on the bare ground. Another soldier dug a trench.

In the Irpin park, among the fallen trees and debris, lay the body of a woman. Underground, many people took refuge in cellars without electricity.

In Irpen, Russian troops also opened fire on the car of American video journalist Brent Renault on Sunday, killing him and injuring a colleague.

AP photographers captured scenes of devastation in and around Irpen on Sunday, the 18th day of the war. Fragments of bombed buildings and a damaged kindergarten classroom in Kharkov. Ruins in the besieged Mariupol. Firefighters attempt to put out a blaze at a destroyed food warehouse in Kyiv.

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Since their invasion, Russian troops have struggled to advance across Ukraine and have laid siege to several cities, hitting them and triggering a series of humanitarian crises.

At a hospital in Brovary, photographs show doctors and nurses working with wounded and limbless people.

Other images show refugees living in shelters in western Ukraine and neighboring countries. The boy was working on a puzzle; the family huddled behind a pile of suitcases; a mother was reading to her little child in a room full of beds.