(3 Mar 2022) Volunteers in the Ukrainian city of Lviv have been setting up defenses and shelters fearing Russian forces may advance sooner or later to the western part of the country.
Thursday, at one of the city's parks, civilians spent the day digging to clean and expand an underground shelter that could fit about as many as 100 people.
Among them was 38-year-old Artem Mokrenets, an interior designer from Kyiv, who fled the capital to seek sanctuary in Lviv.
Mokrenets' life, like the rest of this country's, has been upended in a way no one could have imagined seven days ago.
Since then, the estimated 44 million population of Ukraine has split into three groups: those fleeing, those volunteering and those fighting or preparing to defend themselves.
"We are helping to clean the bomb shelter because Lviv is still not in danger, but we have to be prepared for Russian invasion to the west of Ukraine," Mokrenets told The Associated Press.
"Everything changed in one hour," said the interior designer.
"This is my job for these days until the war stops," Mokrenets added, in reference to the digging.
A member of Ukraine's delegation in talks with Russia said Thursday the parties reached a tentative agreement to organize safe corridors for civilians to evacuate and for humanitarian supplies to be delivered.
But the U.N. refugee agency says the tide of people fleeing the country— including by car, train and on foot — marks the swiftest exodus of refugees this century.
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