Ukrainian woman, 98, walks six miles alone to escape Russian-held territory

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A 98-year-old woman who escaped Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine by using a cane to walk six miles in a pair of slippers has been reunited with her family, days after they were separated while escaping to safety.

Lidia Stepanivna Lomikovska and her family decided to leave the frontline town of Ocheretyne, in the eastern Donetsk region, after Russian troops entered it last week and fighting intensified.

Russians have been advancing in the area, pounding Ukraine's depleted and ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs.

"I woke up surrounded by shooting all around - so scary," Lomikovska said in a video interview posted by Donetsk police.

In the chaos of the departure, Lomikovska became separated from her son and two daughters-in-law, including one who was injured by shrapnel days earlier. The younger family members took to back routes but Lydia wanted to stay on the main road.

With a cane in one hand and steadying herself with a splintered piece of wood in the other, Lomikovska walked all day without food or water to reach Ukrainian lines.

Lomikovska said she fell twice and had to stop to rest sometimes, even having a sleep at one point before continuing her journey.

"Once I lost balance and fell into weeds. I fell asleep … a little and continued walking. And then, for the second time, again, I fell. But then I got up and thought to myself, I need to keep walking, bit by bit," Lomikovska said.

Pavlo Diachenko, a police spokesperson, said Ukrainian soldiers spotted Lomikovska walking along a road in the evening. They handed her over to the White Angels, a police group that evacuates citizens living on the frontline, who took her to a shelter for evacuees and contacted her relatives.

Lomikovska said she had survived the second world war. "I had to go through this war too, and in the end, I am left with nothing," she said. "That war wasn't like this one. I saw that war. Not a single house burned down. But now, everything is on fire," she said to her rescuer.

The chief executive of one of Ukraine's largest banks announced on his Telegram channel on Tuesday that the bank would buy a house for Lomikovska.

"Monobank will buy Lydia Stepanivna a house and she will surely live in it until the moment when this abomination disappears from our land," Oleh Horokhovskyi said.