The United Nations predicts more than 6 million refugees will flee Ukraine for neighboring nations as the Russian onslaught claims more and more civilian lives.
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CBN’s Operation Blessing is on the scene to meet these desperate families and give them the physical and spiritual comfort they need.
Many families are fleeing from Ukraine to Poland. Operation Blessing has been stationed near the border to help bring aid and relief to those fleeing the war. These are some of their stories:
HELP UKRAINIANS IN NEED: Donate to Operation Blessing’s Direct Relief Efforts
Nadiezhda: “My name is Nadiezhda and these are my children. Ilya is 9 years old and Mariana is 5 and a half. We are from western Ukraine from the city of Lutsk. We had a good life there. We were building a house. We took a few things and some money with us. We took what we could. My husband stayed in Ukraine because men between 18 to 60 years old are not allowed to leave the country. He said goodbye to me and then we came here with a group of people from church.”
Hasmik: “My name is Hasmik, or Jasmine, from Kyiv the Kyiv district. I never could imagine that in Ukraine can be war, and now because of this Putin we have this war, and we can’t understand why.”
Nadiezhda: “A week and a half ago nobody was thinking about war. Up until the last moment we didn’t believe it could happen. But it is what it is. We hope in the Lord that he will protect us.”
The bombings have affected these families in heartbreaking ways.
Hasmik: “We have in front of our home, apartment, a very big place and they bombed this building, the office center. It is near to my home, and I thought this moment we died. Really.”
Operation Blessing teams have been on the ground in Poland distributing critical supplies to these precious families.
Hasmik: “Thank you very much that we can visit to Poland, and you help people.”
Nadiezhda: “Thank you so much. Thank you for your help and your prayers. Thank you very much for welcoming us. This is very precious and important at a time like this.
Hasmik: “War is awful. I can say, no war. Only love. So thank you that you help Ukrainian people, and not only Ukrainian but all citizens of all nationalities that lives here. Thank you. Thank you.”
READ CBN’s Operation Blessing Sending International Relief Team to Poland-Ukraine Border to Help Refugees
UKRAINE DEVELOPMENTS: UPDATE
As Russia expands its war to the western part of Ukraine, it is facing stiff opposition both on the battlefield and on diplomatic fronts.
When Russian troops closed in on Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv Thursday, a convoy of tanks approaching the city came under attack as a Ukrainian army ambush awaited them.
Despite facing stiff Ukrainian resistance along the way, a senior U.S. defense official said Russian troops are now just nine miles away from the center of Kyiv.
But more hard hits may be coming for Russia diplomatically.
During talks with Polish officials in Warsaw Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris said Russia should be investigated for committing war crimes.
“We have been witnessing for weeks, and certainly just in the last 24 hours, atrocities of unimaginable proportion,” she said.
Chief among those horrors: the Ukrainian government said the Russians deliberately targeted a hospital in the southern port city of Mariupol, injuring pregnant women and killing three people, including a child. Russia denies that the Mariupol attack was on a hospital, saying it was an extremist base.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian troops have a “clear order to hold Mariupol hostage, to torture it. “
And in Washington today, President Biden is expected to request the G-7 and America’s European allies to join the United States in stripping Russia of its most favored nation trade status.
That would further isolate the country, and allow tariffs on Russian goods to be increased.
“Ukraine will never, never be a victory for Putin,” Biden insisted.
In Ukraine, CBN’S Orphans Promise (OP) is busy throughout the country, caring for orphans and people in need as it has for years.
In the city of Lviv Thursday, CBN News Senior International Correspondent George Thomas joined a team of workers as they prepared to travel on a dangerous journey to deliver humanitarian relief supplies to an OP center near Kyiv.
“This is a hub. This is a main point. And today hundreds of families are going through this Orphan’s Promise partner ministry there, and they’re really helping, folks, Thomas explained. “So we’re going to be sending these supplies. I’ll be traveling with this convoy tomorrow, this weekend, and we’ll hopefully bring you that story Monday morning.”
As the fighting intensifies, another 60,000 refugees fled Ukraine Thursday, passing through humanitarian corridors to the safety of neighboring nations like Poland.
Already more than 2.3 million people have escaped Ukraine and are now living as refugees. And with the devastation of the war getting worse, millions more are expected to flee for safety to Poland and other countries.