Brave Ukrainian civilians vow to stay put as rocket attacks force them to hide in basements

HOMES blown to smithereens and abandoned children’s ­—playgrounds marked the frontline of Ukraine’s spiralling war with Russia yesterday.

The Sun met grandmothers cowering in basements, and others resigned to their fate, as artillery blasts and machine-gun fire echoed over empty courtyards peppered with shrapnel marks.

“This is the worst it has been since 2014,” said Svetlana Kovalova, aged 83.

In the tiny hamlet of Muratove, less than three miles from the front, a dacha was reduced to rubble by an overnight rocket strike.

The blast tore the roof off the building and set the mangled wreckage ablaze.

Residents claimed a barrage of 20 Russian Grad rockets had rained down on their farms from the rebel-held enclave of Luhansk.

It was the first Grad strike since 2015 and came as political leaders in capital Kyiv were poised to declare martial law.

Miraculously, no one was hurt by the attack as most of the rockets landed on farmland. But world leaders have warned of a bloodbath when the 190,000 Russian troops camped on Ukraine’s borders are ordered to invade.

Last night there were rumours of an imminent air strike on Kyiv and journalists were told to remain in their hotels for safety.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Zelensky signed a decree to call up reserves as Kyiv told millions of citizens to leave Russia.

It came as the prospect of an all-out war in the region looked increasingly hard to swerve.

Ukraine’s banks were hit by a wave of cyber attacks yesterday according to the country’s minister of digital transformation.

State websites, including those of the government and foreign ministry, were said to be inaccessible.

In a further sign of Russian ­President Vladimir Putin launching attacks, the Russian embassy in Kyiv yesterday began evacuating its staff back to Russia.

Back in Muratove, Mayor Oleg Kurilov said a third of the hamlet’s 600 residents had fled in the wake of the Grad attack fearing more would follow.

In the nearby town of Schastiya, grandmother Nina Nikolayava, 73, had her windows blown out on Monday when a mortar struck yards from her home.

She said: “It’s only old people left here now.

“Most of the families and the children have gone.”

It’s only old people left here now. Most of the families and the children have gone.

Nina Nikolayava, 73

Pavel Reznichenko, 38, leaned out of a shattered fourth floor window.

He said: “My wife was killed by a shell. I would leave if I could.”

Only the brave and the desperate dared venture outside yesterday to draw water from communal wells.

Their homes were left without power and water after shells hit a nearby power station last week.

Olga, 68, said she had spent three nights sleeping in a basement shelter because of the constant bombardment.

She said: “Of course I am afraid, I am terrified.”

But asked it she wanted to go somewhere safer she gave the same answer as her neighbours: “Where would I go? This is all I know.”