A Ukrainian man who escaped Mariupol has described life in the city as "real hell" after he witnessed blood and body parts covering its streets and Russian bombs destroying his neighbourhood. Victor Mayevsky, 62, is now safe in Poland with his 63-year-old wife, Valentina, after enduring weeks of "constant" shelling, freezing temperatures and severe food and water shortages in the besieged city in south-eastern Ukraine.
The couple woke at 5am to the sound of explosions on February 24, the day of the Russian invasion, and the shelling of their home district of Levoberezhny continued for weeks before they fled. On the morning of the second day, the couple hid in a windowless corridor of their home after watching missiles strike houses and blocks of flats just 300 metres away.
On February 28 a missile landed three metres from their home but failed to explode – later being removed and neutralised by Ukrainian emergency services.
