Day 8: Grim reality of Russian invasion

A father's grief. A tender touch. A new country.

Ukrainians faced another grim day in the Russian invasion Thursday as the bombardment claimed more victims and destroyed buildings. Russian forces seized a strategic seaport and threatened to overtake a major energy hub even as the two sides negotiated corridors to safely evacuate citizens. 

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Zlata, 3, fleeing the conflict from neighboring Ukraine with her face painted in the colors of the Ukrainian flag stands at the Romanian-Ukrainian border, in Siret, Romania, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

Residents poured out of the country by bus and train, sometimes in unheated cars, to cross the border to Poland or Romania. Some desperate to escape the bombings crowded rail stations and squeezed onto trains, not always knowing where they were headed.

The outgunned Ukrainians have put up stiff resistance, staving off the swift victory that Russia appeared to have expected. Volunteer fighters constructed barriers and taught others how to use weapons as the invasion entered its second week.

Natalia, 57, cries as she says goodbye to her daughter and grandson on a train to Lviv at the Kyiv station, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3. 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Children Vlada, left, Katrin and Danilo look out from a window of an unheated carriage of an emergency evacuation train which is traveling from Kharkov to Lviv, as it stopped in the Kyiv railway station in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Andriy Dubchak)

Firefighters hose down a burning building after bombing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Roman, a former Ukrainian soldier injured in combat, gives instructions on how to handle weapons and move during conflict to civilians in the outskirts of Lviv, west Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

A child clutches a man's leg before boarding a Lviv bound train, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

People leaving their relatives press their palms against a window of a Lviv bound train, on the platform in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

People, fleeing Ukraine, register for a bus which will take them to Germany, at the train station in Przemysl, Poland, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Ostap Datsenko, 31, poses for a photo with a tire shredder that he welded in Lviv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. A group of volunteers are constructing metal barriers and tire shredders to be used at new checkpoints across the country in an attempt to stop Russian forces. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

A refugee fleeing the conflict from neighboring Ukraine talks to police officers at the Romanian-Ukrainian border, in Siret, Romania, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

Displaced people queue to get on a train to Poland, inside Lviv railway station, in Lviv, western Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022, in Lviv. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

A girl comforts a cat before the departure of a Lviv bound train, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Teenager Artyom, 15, wounded by shelling, lies in a car waiting to be moved to a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

People disembark from a train originating in Ukraine as it arrives on the platform at the station in Przemysl, Poland, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

A woman bids a man goodbye after boarding a Lviv bound train, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Ambulance paramedics treat an elderly woman wounded by shelling before transferring her to a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Refugees fleeing the conflict from neighboring Ukraine exit a tent at the Romanian-Ukrainian border, in Siret, Romania, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru)

Ukrainians receive CPR training in Lviv, western Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Ambulance paramedics move a person wounded in shelling onto a stretcher to a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Ukrainians cover the sculptures of the Latin Cathedral in Lviv, western Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

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