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A young Ukrainian woman has been killed after delivering dog food to a shelter 30 kilometres outside of Kyiv, with family and friends claiming she was killed by Russian soldiers at 'close range'.
Anastasiia Yalanskaya, 26, insisted she would remain in the city while those around her fled the Ukrainian capital, determined to help those staying behind.
On Friday, friends and family received the word that she and two others who had been delivering food to a dog shelter in Bucha had been shot and killed.
Her final Instagram story, posted just hours before her death, shows her sitting in the back of a car surrounded by bags of dog food.
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Her car was later found, riddled with bullets, close to the house of one of the men she was volunteering with.
“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.”
Now, her family claim that she and her two fellow volunteers were killed by Russian troops, targeted at close-range.
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Yalanskaya’s best friend Anastasiia Hryshchenko said that Russians are targeting civilians.
"They're just randomly shooting people," Hryshchenko said.
"They see civilians and they just shoot them.
"They want people to be scared and horrified. But it only makes our people braver."
Yalanskaya is now being hailed as a 'hero' for trying to help her fellow Ukrainians.
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News of her death comes after over 1.5 million people have been forced to flee the country, while others are without a home but have not yet been able to leave Ukraine.
Attempts to secure partial ceasefires for the opening of humanitarian corridors which would allow civilians to get out of the warzone have failed.
Russian troops have been shelling civilian areas and there have been pleas to give people a chance to get out of cities under siege.
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The Ukrainian military says Russian forces continued shelling areas which were supposed to be safe, while Russian officials accuse the Ukrainians of not following the ceasefire.
The UK's Ministry of Defence has said Russia likely agreed to the ceasefire as a 'ploy' to give them time to rest their forces for another attack.
If you would like to donate to the Red Cross Emergency Appeal, which will help provide food, medicines and basic medical supplies, shelter and water to those in Ukraine, click here for more information.
Featured Image Credit: Ashleigh Stewart/Global NewsTopics: News, Animals, Ukraine, Russia
