A Ukrainian woman who had just delivered food to a dog shelter was shot and killed after being targeted by Russian troops, her family say.
According to Canadian news outlet Global News, 26-year-old Anastasiia Yalanskaya was making a delivery to a dog shelter in Bucha, which is roughly 30km from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, on Friday when she was killed. The shelter had apparently been out of supplies for three days.
Russian troops have amassed near Kyiv since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine nearly two weeks ago. The city remains under Ukrainian control, but satellite images show a massive Russian presence in nearby regions.
Kyiv lies south of the Ukraine-Belarus border, which Russian forces have been streaming across in large convoys. Global News says Bucha is part of Ukraine's defence line guarding the capital.
According to Yalanskaya's friends and family, the young woman's car was being deliberately targeted at close range by Russian troops. While they aren't sure why this was, they say the Russians are killing civilians to scare the population into submitting. Yalanskaya had apparently been with two men when the troops opened fire.
One of her friends grew concerned after not hearing from Yalanskaya for a number of hours. They had been staying in close contact due to the dangerous situation.
The father of one of the men Yalanskaya had been with eventually found their car riddled with bullets. It's reported that they had successfully delivered the dog food, but were killed on their way home.
Despite Yalanskaya's family fleeing Ukraine, as hundreds of thousands of others have, she had apparently insisted she stay.
"I asked her to be extra cautious. That nowadays, a mistake costs extremely much," her husband Yevhen Yalanskyi told Global News. "But she was helping everyone around. I asked her to think of evacuation but she did not listen."
The media outlet reports a number of the responsibilities the woman had taken on in recent days in war-torn Ukraine, including working at a kindergarten and taking aid to a military hospital.
"She was one of the best human beings I knew. She was committed to help, to help her friends and relatives and whoever needed help," Yalanskyi, the husband, said.
"She loved animals. We had a dog and a cat. She was the best partner I ever had."
While Putin has denied targeting civilians, social media reporting as well as statements from Ukrainian and Western authorities suggest otherwise. A Sky News team of journalists were last week targeted by a Russian hit squad near Kyiv, while images have emerged showing missile strikes on residential areas of major cities.
The United Nations says at least 351 civilians have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine, but the true number was likely considerably higher.
Two attempts to evacuate civilians from the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol have been unsuccessful as the city's council said Russia continued to bombard it despite a ceasefire agreement.
