'I had to stay below ground for more than 60 days'
Laura Bicker - BBC, Dnipro | 4 hours ago
Katerina closed her eyes and took a breath when I asked about her husband, a fighter, who is still thought to be in the maze of tunnels beneath the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.She'd been calm and composed until now. She too spent more than two months in one of the bunkers under the vast industrial facility with her two sons where the bombardment felt like it would never end.
"The missiles were so heavy it felt like the bunker walls were moving and the rooms themselves became smaller," she told me.
"Sometimes there was a one-hour break and we hoped maybe that's it. Maybe that's the end of it. But no. They carried on."
Behind us, her two boys, aged 6 and 11, were playing with guns made from paper and duct tape.
"They are adapting to being outside again," said Katerina.
"Seeing them running around in the sun again is the best feeling in the world."
She remembers all three of them being "blinded by light" as they finally emerged after two months in their dark refuge under the steel plant.
As the two boys duck and dive behind the trees in the park, they pretend they're fighting Russians. At one point they drop to the ground and shout 'cover your ears'. One gives the shout of 'all clear' and they stand up and get going again.
It's haunting to watch. . .
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61494853