A teenager has spoken of his fear after losing at least one friend and possibly his house in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Nik Rykov, 19, is from Kharkiv, about 25 miles from the north-east border with Russia, but decamped to a village away from the city before Thursday’s deadly air strike.
He said one of his friends was among the dozens of soldiers reported to have died in the attack, while he fears for another who was in an affected area and has not responded since.
“He went to the army and protected our country until the end of his life,” Mr Rykov, a software engineer, told the PA news agency.
I haven't even completed basic military training, and I'm very afraid of being used as cannon fodder
Mr Rykov said friends who have remained in the city have told him that homes near his had been hit by the shelling, but he did not know whether his was one of them.
He asked for the location of his home, and the village where he is currently staying, not to be published.
“I’m very scared,” he said.
“This invasion is a giant crime against all people, not only Ukrainians.”
Mr Rykov said he was worried he may now be conscripted to join the army himself.
“I haven’t even completed basic military training, and I’m very afraid of being used as cannon fodder,” he said.
Caleb Umeh, one of Kharkiv’s student population, said the mood in the city is tense.
“It is actually scary, I must confess,” he told PA.
“You don’t know what to do. You’re just here hoping that you just get that call or that message that the war is over.
“Looking out of my window, just once in a while I see one or two persons go out maybe to get stuff and they run back in, but the streets are totally deserted.”
Mr Umeh, a 29-year-old lawyer from Nigeria who is in Ukraine for a masters programme, has remained in his accommodation block, which has a basement to shelter in if and when the sirens sound.
But many others including some of his friends, he says, have abandoned their homes to camp out in subway stations.
Another friend, he said, encountered an unexploded shell sticking up from the middle of the road.
“It has been a lot,” he said.
“Yesterday from around 2am I was awake.
“From my room I could hear a number of shelling, I was hearing some blasts, but I couldn’t just conclude at that point it was actually from the Russian army until the morning (when) I got to know a military base not too far from my residence was actually brought down, totally destroyed.”
He called for interventions from outside the region to end the violence as soon as possible.
“If the world or if political leaders around can actually do something and help contain this present crisis in Ukraine, that would be great,” he said.
Mr Rykov said he understood why their might be a reluctance from the West to get too involved.
“I think that our Western friends are understanding that we’re in high danger, but they’re too afraid of war with Russia, and it’s fully understandable because it’s a very powerful military country,” he said.
“What I would ask to do is go to solidarity rallies. European leaders must understand that their countries support Ukraine, not Russia.”
