By The Associated Press
In a village on the outskirts of Kyiv, residents sift through the rubble of their destroyed homes, searching for buried personal items. Serhiy Malyshenko, a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, holds his military medals, charred black from the shelling by Russian forces.
Soldiers and other personnel comfort distraught Ukrainian seniors evacuated from Irpin, a key suburb northwest of the capital that has seen heavy fighting, as they arrive at an assistance center in the village of Yasnohorodka.
At a private zoo in the village, workers and soldiers attempt to evacuate the surviving animals, wrangling ostriches and carrying a stressed pony to a truck. They were forced to halt when shelling resumed between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the area.
On Wednesday, Russian forces bombarded areas around Kyiv just hours after pledging to scale back operations to promote trust between the two sides, Ukrainian authorities said.