Oleksandr and his family lived near the bus station. He bought the apartment the day before the full-scale invasion. He says he heard the sound of salvos from the Left Bank and saw Mariupol residents running to the city center seeking safety. 

"I rode a bicycle. I saw the fighting, a lot of destroyed equipment, heard explosions, the whistle of bullets. Snipers worked.

We saw from the window how the houses on Kirova Street were burning, how the Left Bank was burning. Many people from the Left Bank moved into our house wearing slippers and no outerwear. There were 16 persons in a 2-room apartment.

Everything was flying at us. An aircraft dropped a bomb – I got a concussion, people in the neighboring house were killed by mortar shelling.

There was a hit in March. A shell hit a car and blew out the engine. An old man did not have time to run, he died. A woman was cut by the debris.

Several families died in our entrance.

We were leaving the burning house. Cars were burning in front of us, melted plastic and glass were falling. There was a wall of smoke", – Oleksandr, a resident of Mariupol, said.