ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — It had taken 11 hours of driving, bargaining for passage through 20 checkpoints manned by stern-faced Russian soldiers, along with the knowledge that every mile took you farther away from home, probably for good. But by 6 p.m., the three families crammed into a worn-down Mercedes van had made it out of Mariupol, Ukraine.
"There were so many bombs," said Volodymyr Korotky, a 56-year-old mechanic who left Mariupol with his family and only two suitcases' worth of clothes he could save from his destroyed apartment. "I'm so happy we're in Ukrainian territory."
He and his wife, along with nine other people, arrived at the parking lot of an Epicenter store, a sort of Ukrainian Home Depot, here on the edge of Zaporizhzhia, which has become the primary node for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Melitopol, Berdyansk and Mariupol — cities in the south and southeast that bear witness to the horror and despair of Russia's occupation.
