'I'm sure I'll die soon': Woman's harrowing diary in war-torn Ukrainian city

A woman from a besieged Ukrainian city says she is "waiting" for death in a series of powerful Facebook posts, detailing the destruction caused by Russian forces.

The Facebook posts were shared after Nadezhda Sukhorukova fled Mariupol, a strategically important southern port which is under attack by Russian forces.

Ms Sukhorukova has since fled the city and is safe, the New York Times reported, however her posts detailed what it was like in Mariupol amid the conflict.

The Mariupol bombardment has left buildings in rubble and severed central supplies of electricity, heating and water, according to local authorities.

In one post, Ms Sukhorukova explains why she has to regularly leave her home.

"I go outside in between the bombings. I need to walk the dog," she said, explaining her dog whines, trembles and cowers behind her.

She said the area she was in, was "dead" and destroyed, detailing how flames have "devoured" buildings, though she says her home is the only one on the street which isn't destroyed.

She explained the fire department had been hit, and wrote that she had seen people with limbs torn off.

"I am sure I will die soon. It's a matter of a few days. In this city, everyone is constantly waiting for death," Ms Sukhorukova said.

While out on the street with her dog, Ms Sukhorukova notes how silent it is.

"There are no cars, no voices, no children, no grandmothers on the benches. Even the wind is dead. A few people on here though," she said.

"They are lying on the side of the house and in the parking lot covered with upper clothes. I don't want to look at them. I'm afraid I'll see someone I know."

Everyone in Mariupol was hiding in their basements, where it is hard for them to survive due to the lack of food, water and light.

City dying a "painful death"

On March 18, Ms Sukhorukova said on Facebook she had fled Mariupol and was safe.

"I am alive and now I will live long. And my city is dying a painful death. [For] twenty days I was dying with him," she wrote.

"I have been through hell. I'm not a hero, I'm an ordinary person and I was scared to die."

In that same Facebook post, she detailed what it is like to live in hiding, while war raged above – the noise of the metal hitting a roof, the fear of leaving the shelter to get water.

She described the helplessness of being the target of constant shelling.

"You sit and realise you can't even move. You can't run away, there's no point in screaming, there's nothing in hiding," she said.

For the last two weeks, many of Mariupol's 400,000 residents were trapped, as Russia sought to take control of the city.

By taking the city, Russia would be able to secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky has described the attack on Mariupol as a war crime.

"To do this to a peaceful city ... is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come," he said in a broadcast.

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Over the weekend, Moscow had offered safe passage out of Mariupol — one corridor leading east to Russia, another going west to other parts of Ukraine — in return for the city’s surrender before daybreak Monday.

Ukraine flatly rejected the offer well before the deadline.

Mariupol officials said on March 15 that at least 2,300 people had died in the siege, with some buried in mass graves.

There has been no official estimate since then, but the number is feared to be far higher.

In her post telling her loved ones she was safe, Ms Sukhorukova said people who were not guilty of anything were still left in "hell", meaning Mariupol.

"Don't be a cowardly traitor," she said.

"Please, even if we cannot save Mariupol, help save Mariupol residents. There are hundreds of thousands of people. They want to live."

With Reuters and Associated Press

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