CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward was reporting from a packed subway in Ukraine on Thursday as citizens took shelter from attacks by Russia on their country.
The journalist showed scenes of people crammed into the station and on train cars as the Russian attack continued, with citizens and visitors being told by local authorities to seek shelter.
“You can see dozens of people are squashed in. They’re sitting on the seats there in the dark. There are children there and almost everyone we walk to, Jim, says the same thing, they’re asking us what’s happening? What’s going to happen?” Ward said in a live report. “And the other question we’re hearing again and again from people today is where is the world? Why is the world not coming to our rescue? How is it possible that in 2022 you can launch an invasion on a European country and nobody seems to be able to put a stop to it?”
Ward said most of the people she had spoken to had been taking shelter in the station for several hours. She said she asked some of them if they had cars to flee, and revealed they responded, “‘Where would we flee to? Where would we go to?’ There’s a sense at the moment in Ukraine — and it’s palpable — that nowhere is protected and so you do have a deep state of panic,” she said.
The correspondent also reported earlier in the morning on Thursday from Kharkiv, Ukraine, where she showed people kneeling in a square to pray.
“So to see these people kneeling on the cold stone in prayer, is honestly, it’s very moving, Don [Lemon],” she shared. “And I think it speaks to the state of ordinary Ukrainians here who have done absolutely nothing to deserve his, who have no quarrel with Russia, who have no desire for war or conflict, who are not engaged with the geopolitics underpinning all of this and yet who will ultimately be the ones to bare the brunt of … this multi-pronged major attack by one of the world’s most sophisticated militaries on a sovereign, independent nation.”