A young girl hugs a beloved scraggly gray stuffed cat at a reception center for the hundreds of civilians evacuated from a Mariupol steel works plant after weeks of bombardment by Russian forces. Nearby, a young man kisses his real gray cat, the eyes of both man and pet closed in relief at their escape.
About 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers remained trapped this week in the tunnels of the Azovstal steel plant, including one service member of the Azov Special Forces Regiment who grimly posed for a photograph, the sleeve of his sweat shirt pulled back to reveal his missing left arm, blown off during the fighting against Russian forces.
