Day 26: In Ukraine's capital, scenes of fortitude

A shopping center lies in smoldering ruins after being bombarded by Russian forces in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. A man can be seen pacing in his upper-floor apartment after an entire wall of his residential building was sheered off in a shelling attack.

The Russian assault on the Ukrainian capital continued Monday with devastating force, targeting the homes of Kyiv's residents, with deadly consequences. A worker at the crematorium of the city's Baikave cemetery, 40-year-old Ruslan Trishchuk, took a brief smoke break from the sad task of incinerating the dead, dozens of wooden coffins stacked up behind him.

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A woman measures a window before covering it with plastic sheets in a building damaged by a bombing the previous day in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Still, the resilient spirit and determined fortitude of the city's survivors was everywhere: A woman measured her apartment window destroyed by bombing a day earlier, before covering it with plastic. Serhii Volosovets, a commander in the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces, fired a pistol at a training camp for volunteers in Brovary, northeast of Kyiv.

And a young woman, 19-year-old Daryna Kovalenko, held her little terrier, Tim, close upon arriving at Kyiv’s train station, after leaving her home in Chernihiv through a humanitarian corridor. 

People gather amid the destruction caused after shelling of a shopping center, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/ (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Civilian volunteers attend a training camp of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces in Brovary, northeast of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Daryna Kovalenko, 19 , holds her dog Tim, while arriving at Kyiv's train station after leaving her home in Chernihiv, Ukraine, through a humanitarian corridor, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/ (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Volunteers cook in the courtyard of a theatre in the city of Drohobych, western Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. The theatre has become a meeting point, where artists, including those displaced from other parts of Ukraine, have turned their talents to making food for soldiers and others as part of a massive volunteer war effort across the country. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

A man walks in his apartment ruined after the Russian shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Worker Ruslan Trishchuk, 40, smokes a cigarette while taking a break outside the crematorium of Baikave cemetery in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Slava Chikov covers the shattered window of his living room with a plastic sheet in a building damaged by a bombing the previous day in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

A woman cleans up her kitchen from debris in an apartment block damaged by a bombing the previous day in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

A man appears through shattered windows of a building after a shelling in Odesa, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Max Pshybyshevsky)

Ukrainian firefighters and servicemen search for people under debris inside a shopping center after bombing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Serhii Volosovets, a commander in the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces, fires a pistol during a training camp for volunteers in Brovary, northeast of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Vasyl Nevolov, an internally displaced Ukrainian from Kyiv, rests inside a theatre in the city of Drohobych, western Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. The theatre has become a meeting point, where artists, including those displaced from other parts of Ukraine, have turned their talents to making food for soldiers and others as part of a massive volunteer war effort across the country. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire amid the destruction caused after shelling of a shopping center, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/ (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)