‘It’s a horror show’: defiant Kharkiv residents return home despite new Russian offensive

Natalia Tkachuk, 40, and her daughter Anastasia, 11, shelter from Russian shelling inside the Heroiv Pratsi underground station in the Kharkiv suburb of Saltivka. Photograph: Jelle Krings/The Observer

When Tatyana Marchenko, 63, returned to her home in Kharkiv earlier this month, she entered a world of destruction.

Clothes and children’s toys were scattered over the paths between the burned-out buildings, many of which had massive holes where shells had smashed through.