welcome to bbc news. i m james reynolds. our top stories: in ukraine s second biggest city, residential buildings are reduced to rubble and families are hiding underground. we have a special report from inside kharkiv. this is so far from normal. this is so farfrom normal. it is hard to describe. these people have no idea what they are going to do next. ukraine s president criticises the west for ruling out. a no fly zone over his country. translation: they want to continue knowing that new strikes and casualties are inevitable. nato deliberately decided not to close the sky over ukraine. more people are
border. it has been under almost constant attack. the city of kharkiv is stilljust in ukrainian hands. you can see there in the north east of the country and many people have taken refuge in metro stations in the city centre. 0ur correspondent sarah rainsford managed to reach one of those stations and she sent the bbc s first report from kharkiv since the war began. as we drove into kharkiv, it looked like half the city was heading out a flow of families who ve endured days of bombs and explosions. many wrote the word children on their cars, hoping they wouldn t be targeted. a few miles on, we found others standing with bundles of belongings, waiting for a bus to take them out any bus to anywhere. svetlana told me shells had been landing close to her home. i asked how she s coping. she said she isn t. it s been a week
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and men searching for medicine among the ruins to use for soldiers. it is scary, but this is our city, maxim tells me. we don t want to run anywhere. so, ukraine s second city has moved underground to shelter from a war they didn t see coming and don t understand. whole lives are now playing out on these platforms. families bedding down in trains that stopped when the war began. at least the children don t hear the explosions down here. above ground, shops are running out of food. down here, people live off hand outs. i really. i m scared about myself and about my family. so, we take our documents and just came here. there are now thousands of people living underground like this here in kharkiv for more than a week now
much to bear. translation: it s scary because we don t know. what s coming tomorrow. nothing is changing here. nothing s happening. even food shopping means taking a risk, queueing in the open for three hours while the shelves get emptier every day. despite the pressure, ukraine still controls this crucial city. but kharkiv fears this war has barely started. a city of russian speakers who can t fathom why russia is now destroying their lives and their houses. sarah rainsford, bbc news, kharkiv. russian forces are steadily making gains in the war, as we have seen, as urban areas are cut off by troops. in mariupol, under siege, the mayor says food is running out, there is