This is the heart-wrenching moment a Ukrainian BBC journalist is left almost speechless live on air as she views images of her mother’s bombed-out Kyiv flat.
In a clip viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media, journalist Olga Malchevska is seen discussing the situation in Ukraine with BBC World News anchor Karin Giannone.
The pair talk about how the fighting is nearing Kyiv when Ms Malchevska reveals she has received a message from her mother who lives in the Ukrainian capital.
She also reveals that a block of bombed-out flats, pictured in various UK media outlets today, is the same one her mother had been forced to flee just hours earlier.
Ms Malchevska says: ‘I’ve just got a message from my other finally. I couldn’t reach her.
‘She has taken shelter. She’s hiding in the basement. Luckily she was not in our building that was bombed at night.’
Ms Giannone replies: ‘And that’s literally the building that we’ve been talking about that has been destroyed?’
Ms Malchevska replies: ‘Yes. When we were told about coming into the studio yesterday I could not imagine that actually, at 3am London time, I would find out that actually my home was bombed.
In a clip already viewed hundreds of thousands of times, Olga Malchevska (pictured) is seen discussing the situation in Ukraine with BBC World News anchor Karin Giannone
She also reveals that a block of bombed-out flats (pictured), widely pictures in UK media outlets today, is the same one her mother had been forced to flee just hours earlier
Ms Malchevska, who posted about the incident on Instagram, said: ‘I’ve just got a message from my other finally. I couldn’t reach her. ‘She has taken shelter. She’s hiding in the basement. Luckily she was not in our building that was bombed at night.’
‘Those pictures, that footage that everybody saw is literally my home. People there were evacuated into the school. But thank God my family is safe.
Footage is then shown of the bombed-out flats, at which point Ms Malchevska says: ‘This actual building is my home. I’m trying to see where my actual flat is because I was living on the sixth floor.
Ms Malchevska can then be heard letting out a sigh before saying: ‘I just can’t think in my head that what I’m seeing is somewhere where I used to live.’
It comes as Ukrainian forces took to the streets of Kyiv today with national guard troops pictured lining up defensive positions along a highway shortly before the sounds of gunfire and explosions rang out as they battled Russian forces for control of the capital.
Putin’s men are now thought to be inside the city, though their exact location and number is unclear. Fighting was reported in Obolon, on the city’s outskirts, in the early hours as the ministry of defence told residents to make Molotov cocktails to ‘repel the occupiers’. Rifles were also handed out to civilians as President Zelensky urged any European willing to defend the country to travel to Ukraine and join in the defence.
The Russian troops are thought to have arrived from the north-west, having pushed down from Chernobyl which was captured late yesterday. More Russian troops and armour are advancing on the capital from Konotop, in the east, having bypassed the city of Chernihiv where they ran into heavy Ukrainian resistance.
Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said today will be the war’s ‘hardest day’.
Once Kyiv is surrounded, US intelligence believes the plan will be for Russian special forces to move in and seize an airport – likely Sikorsky or Boryspil – which would then be used to fly in a much larger force of up to 10,000 paratroopers who would assault the capital.
The job of the paratroopers would be to enter the city, find Zelensky, his ministers, and parliamentarians, before forcing them to sign a peace deal handing control of the country back to Russia or a Moscow-backed puppet regime – effectively ending the war without Putin’s ground forces needing to complete the difficult and bloody task of seizing and occupying the whole country.
Ukrainian soldiers are pictured forming up across a highway in Kyiv as they prepare to defend the city from Russian attackers, with gunfire and explosions heard in the centre of the capital
Ukrainian soldiers take position on a bridge inside the city of Kyiv, as Russian forces advance into the capital
It appears the Russians almost pulled off the plan on the first day of the invasion when 20 attack helicopters landed a crack team of troops at Antonov Airport, 15 miles to the north of Kyiv. But Ukrainian national guard units managed to retake the landing strip overnight after heavy fighting, scattering the surviving Russian attackers into the surrounding countryside.
A Russian attack on the capital would likely be coordinated with a push by troops on southern and eastern fronts – Crimea and Donbass – aimed at pinning down Ukrainian armed forces so they cannot retreat and reinforce the city, officials told author Michael Weiss.
It may also be accompanied by bombing raids and sabotage attacks on power grids and infrastructure to sow panic and force people to flee, snarling up roads and making it difficult for forces already in Kyiv to move around.
The plan appeared to be underway in the early hours, as explosions sounded before dawn with the city under bombardment from what the defense minister called ‘horrific rocket strikes’ not seen since 1941.
Ukraine’s armed forces claimed to have shot down a Russian jet over the outskirts of the city, with flaming wreckage seen falling from the sky, as Zelensky gave a national address, saying Russia has identified him as ‘target number 1’ of the invasion but he and his family were remaining in the city.
He said invading Russian forces are targeting civilian areas, praising his countrymen for their ‘heroism’ and assuring them that the armed forces are doing ‘everything possible’ to protect them.
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