STRICTLY Come Dancing star Motsi Mabuse has revealed fears she’ll never see her husband’s Ukrainian hometown after it came under attack from Russian forces.
The professional dancer, whose husband Evgenij Voznyuk is from Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, has been horrified by the devastation caused by the Russian invasion.
Today she wrote on Twitter: “2020 we booked our flights to spend Easter in Kharkiv and return a day before my birthday, because of lockdown we cancelled the trip. 2021 we were still on lockdown! 2022 seems I will never see the town my husband was born . He wanted to show me his motherland! #Kharkiv.
“Hopefully one day !! Another day filled with horror ! Please let this stop 
.”
After seeing a video of a Russian airstrike hitting Kharkiv’s Freedom Square, she wrote: “I am just speechless!!!!!!!!!!!”
Motsi’s in-laws remain in the under siege city, unable to flee to the Polish border before the city came under attack.
She previously wrote: “Our parents have been told to go outside and to switch off water & gas! They have no possibility to get to the Polish border,” Motsi wrote.
“It’s heartbreaking hearing my mother-in-law crying this morning, afraid and there absolutely nothing we can do! Just sad honestly!”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of war crimes after the Kharkiv blitz killed 11 and destroyed a school.
Footage showed a barrage of rockets or cluster bombs falling over residential areas in the city which has a large Russia-friendly population.
The midday raid left at least 11 dead, including three children – and other shelling also destroyed a school.
Kharkiv has been holding out staunchly against the Russian invaders even though it is just 25 miles from the border.
But this resistance appears to have led to Vladimir Putin unleashing a devastating blitz on the city’s 1.5million people.
It came amid chilling warnings that Russian generals have been ordered to take the city at all costs.
Russia struck the city centre of Kharkiv again this morning near the administration building, injuring six people including a child.
Regional governor Oleg Sinegubov said: “Russian occupiers continue to use heavy weaponry against the civilian population.”
Zelenskyy spoke in a late night address as he accused Russia of war crimes – and as morning came there were street battles raging throughout Kharkiv.
The hero leader said: “Today, Russian forces brutally fired on Kharkiv from jet artillery. It was clearly a war crime.
“Kharkiv is a peaceful city, there are peaceful residential areas, no military facilities.
“Dozens of eyewitness accounts prove that this is not a single false volley, but deliberate destruction of people: the Russians knew where they were shooting.
“There will definitely be an international tribunal for this crime — it’s a violation of all conventions. No one in the world will forgive you for killing peaceful Ukrainian people.”
It comes as…
- Russia has a 40-mile column bearing down on Kyiv as the city endured another night of airstrikes
- Putin is believed to unleashed terrifying “vacuum bombs” which can blow out people’s lungs
- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of war crimes over the attacks of Kharkiv
- Zelenskyy also gave Boris Johnson a “shopping list” of arms needed to defeat Russian forces
- Brits are signing up in their droves to join up in Ukraine and fight against Putin
- The Klitschko brothers are on a “kill list” of leading Ukrainians the Russians want dead
- Brave civilians unleashed a molotov cocktail attack on a Russian tank as they fight back
- At least 16 children have been killed – including a little girl, 6, as her docs told reporters ‘show this to Putin‘
- Vladimir Putin shed his geeky image with the help of steroids and extensive plastic surgery to become the brute he is today
- The Russian tyrant has amassed 6,000 nuclear weapons as he puts his arsenal on high alert
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said: “Barbaric Russian missile strikes on the central Freedom Square and residential districts of Kharkiv. Putin is unable to break Ukraine down.
“He commits more war crimes out of fury, murders innocent civilians. The world can and must do more.
“INCREASE PRESSURE, ISOLATE RUSSIA FULLY!”
Speaking on GMB earlier, General Sir Adrian Bradshaw, former NATO deputy supreme commander, also accused Russia of using devastating vacuum bombs.
He said: “They’re now into a bitter fight for the cities. This now turns to a very bitter different phase of the war.
“It must be exposed to the Russians. They’re just getting propaganda, they need to be told the truth, so that they understand what’s being done in their name.
“They’re using thermobaric weapons – it creates a fuel-air mixture, it sucks the oxygen out of the air around it, it creates a shockwave, it’s highly destructive, affects anyone sheltering in cellars, its incredibly disruptive, that’s why it’s banned.
“In terms of humane ways of fighting the war, they’re out on a different scale.”
