The damaged local city hall of Kharkiv, destroyed in Russian shelling (AFP)
The roommate of an Indian student, who lost his life in conflict-hit Ukraine today, has said he "will survive tonight" but is worried about essentials and food running out. His friend, 21-year-old Naveen Shekharappa, a final year medical student from Karnataka's Haveri, died when Russian soldiers blew up a government building.
The roommates had been taking shelter in the basement of their apartment building in Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv for the last five days.
Srikant, who lost his friend today, said he and two others in the shelter would stay put as any attempt to reach the railway station would be highly risky amid the Russian bombings and missile attacks.
Narrating how they got through the day, Srikant told NDTV, "We didn't have enough food since last night, so we tried to look for food this morning. There was a curfew since 3 pm yesterday to 6 am today. After 6 am, when I woke up, I messaged Naveen 'where are you?' He asked me to transfer some money to get more stuff from the shop."
Naveen Shekharappa had left the shelter to buy groceries at a store just 50 metres from the apartment.
"I said am transferring, after that for 10 minutes we heard bombings and missiles everywhere. I called him, but he didn't pick up. After half an hour, when I tried calling again, someone received the call, a Ukrainian, and they said something I couldn't understand. I gave the phone to one of my neighbours who was in the shelter with us. The lady was speaking and she started to cry. I asked what happened, she said he was no more," Srikant told NDTV.
"One of my friends and me went to the same store. It was closed and there was no sign of bombing or missile hit there. We thought he was killed by gunshot. We don't know where his body was, we don't have any proper information," Srikant said, adding Naveen went to the store with a junior student, who didn't wear shoes since the shop was very close.
But the junior student returned to get his shoes and was about to return to help Naveen carry the groceries, Srikant said.
On whether he also plans to try to reach the train station in Kharkiv, from where he could catch a train to western Ukraine to cross the border to one of the neighbouring countries for eventual evacuation to India, Srikant told NDTV: "People can travel to the western parts, but there is no transport. There are some trains on first-come, first-serve. We don't know if we will get the train because Ukrainians are also going. There are reports of people being pushed out of trains. In this situation we thought it better to stay here only. Five of my friends risked it to take the train and right now they are travelling in train."
Srikant said there could be some 120 students from Karnataka in Kharkiv, and approximately 2,000 from India. "We are scared of going out, too much bombings. Everyone who goes out does so at their own risk," he said.
"For today, we got rice from someone staying in the shelter. We have an apartment upstairs, but we are not in a situation to go up and cook. Today, we will survive," said Srikant.
The Russian offensive seems to have changed from sending small groups of infantry supported by tanks, armoured personnel carriers and attack helicopters to an all-out offensive by a large number of troops, aided by bombings and frequent rocket barrage on the capital Kyiv and Kharkiv.
These urban centres have Ukrainian government buildings amid lakhs of civilian homes. The reports that are coming in indicate the Russian rocket attacks are targeting large areas in the city, which would likely end up hitting homes.