A bright blue tarp lies crumpled on the street of the besieged port of Mariupol, two sneakered feet protruding from one end. A man stands atop the remains of a bridge struck by Russian military forces, the former span now a crooked skeleton of bent steel, broken concrete and splintered wood. And a small girl peeks out from under the arm of an older woman, their faces lit yellow by the light of an oil lamp as they huddle in a bomb shelter in Mariupol.
The stark images captured by photographers for The Associated Press on the 13th day of Russia's war on Ukraine show the enormous toll the assault has taken on the country's people and infrastructure.
As Russian shelling continued Tuesday, the number of refugees climbed to 2 million people, United Nations officials said. In one AP photo, dozens of Ukrainians push together under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee across the Irpin River on the outskirts of the capital of Kyiv. In another, an elderly woman who's been squeezed into a small shopping cart rides with her feet dangling over the edge as a man pushes her through the street after being evacuated from the Kyiv suburb of Irpin.
Citizens who were unable to flee amid the incessant attacks crowd into a makeshift bomb shelter in Mariupol. Inside, a young girl sits on a pile of blankets before a cement wall with peeling blue paint, looking out over an open book in her lap. Elsewhere in the shelter, hungry people line up before giant pots filled with food.
Meanwhile, back out on the streets, the fighting continues, its widespread devastation evident everywhere, including in a demolished building in the city of Kharkiv where the tailfin of a crashed Russian bomber plane now sits.
