*The website of the BILD newspaper is no longer accessible in Russia. The Russian media regulator has blocked access to BILD.de, which like WELT is published by Axel Springer, for readers in Russia. WELT distributes the texts of the BILD colleagues so that readers in Russia can find out about facts beyond the Russian government propaganda.
This article in German.
The road to Lisichansk is called “Road to hell” (the road to hell): the Russian army shoots at everything that moves there – on Wednesday afternoon and at us.
We left early in the morning to talk to civilians in Lisichansk, to see the destruction, to see with our own eyes. The place was subjected to massive attacks by the Russian army and is under threat of encirclement.
When we return at noon along the last remaining road leading out of the city, the shelling begins. Four explosions a few meters from us. And soon after – more explosions, our window broke.
We run as fast as we can, further and further down the dusty road, the dust billowing in the air, we can hardly see anything. Here it is, a hell of a road.
We hear shelling all the time from afar, and after half an hour we turn off the road, which is being so intensively attacked by the Russian army.
All three hug each other. We realize that we might already be dead.
Just a few weeks ago, a French reporter was murdered here. To date, almost twenty correspondents have died in the war in Ukraine.
The horror that we also experienced demonstrates how fiercely the war is raging in the east of the country. What we saw in Lisichansk shows the whole drama of the war. People who are left without water for months, without electricity. Many buildings are completely destroyed, for example, the house of culture, which was demolished as a result of an air raid.
The Russian army does not want this horror to be reported. They are trying to intimidate journalists with their attacks.
