The interior ruins of an apartment destroyed by Russian shelling were visible from the streets of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. People in winter coats and hats took cover from an attack inside a building entryway in Mariupol, a besieged port city. And in neighboring Poland, a young refugee in blue jeans and a red sweatshirt played with a green, toy horn inside the Przemysl train station.
On the 19th day of the war in Ukraine, AP photographers captured scenes of destruction and fear across the embattled country -- and some moments of playfulness among children forced to flee their homeland -- as Russian artillery kept falling from the sky, shattering buildings and lives. No breakthrough was made in high-level talks between Russia and Ukraine, and a Red Cross official said Moscow’s unrelenting bombardment has created “nothing short of a nightmare’’ for civilians.
