Andrew R.C. Marshall

Thousands of people are fleeing war in eastern Ukraine for the relative safety of its western border with Poland, only to find that a punishing new ordeal awaits.

For millions of Ukrainians, the Russian invasion five days ago brought death, terror and uncertainty. For Mila Hadzieva, an IT manager in the western city of Lviv, it brought a searing clarity of purpose.

As Russian rockets pounded targets in eastern Ukraine, men of fighting age lined up for hours outside gun shops in the western city of Lviv on Tuesday to buy hunting rifles and shotguns to protect their communities.

In his grandparents’ time, said Maksym Kozytsky, there was a saying: In every cellar you should hide a gun to fight the Russians.

Thousands of women and children, many weeping and numb with exhaustion, arrived in Lviv in western Ukraine on Saturday as the state railway put on more trains to rescue people from fierce Russian attacks on eastern cities.

Before Russia launched its assault on Ukraine, Andriy Senkiv was a pacifist who blogged about sport and had never held a gun in his life.

Victoria Zaburyna had urged her 76-year-old mother to flee the Russian forces that now besiege Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine. She replied that the city was still calm and had stayed put.

Before he left for the front, Ukrainian military reservist Viktor Dudar hugged his wife Oksana and told her not to worry.

The Ukrainian colonel’s blast-damaged car limped back from the forest where he had just treated soldiers wounded in a Russian missile attack on a military base in the country’s far western edge.

The two far-right politicians want to upend the way votes are cast and counted.