At 91, siege of Leningrad survivor is besieged by war again

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Alevtina Shernina was a young girl when she survived the brutal siege of Leningrad during World War II. Eight decades later, so frail she can barely talk, or move unassisted, she is besieged again. The 91-year-old lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city and one of the most battered urban areas in Russia’s invasion. The bombardment has come so close that windows in her building were blown out. And yet Shernina cannot flee, even to a bomb shelter. Her heart problems leave her too fragile to carry down to the basement when air raid sirens scream. Her daughter-in-law says she feels “inhuman anger” that Shernina again faces cold and hunger.