The Russian soldiers she encountered “truly believe that everyone around is a Nazi,” said Tetyana Vlasenko. Tetyana Vlasenko was bleeding from 12 bullet wounds to her legs when she begged a Russian military officer nearby for help. His soldiers had opened fire on her family’s car, yet the officer was apologetic as the soldiers gave them first aid. While she lay there seriously hurt, she recalls him saying, “I’m sorry for doing this but we have an order to shoot everything that is moving, and you cannot imagine how many cars like this we have full of Nazis who are trying to bomb us,” Tetyana, 42, told NBC News on Wednesday from her bed in Kyiv City Hospital 17. Her husband, Roman, 50, and their daughter, Katherina, 16, were also hit in their legs.
The officer’s comments echoed President Vladimir Putin’s accusations of Nazi elements within Ukraine, his stated reason for invading Russia’s western neighbor. Experts have slammed the allegations as slanderous and false. Tetyana, a former shop worker, said the Russian soldiers she encountered “truly believe that everyone around is a Nazi.” She added that the soldiers “were all terrified,” and she had spoken calmly with them prior to the shooting.
via nbcnews: ‘I don’t know how we survived’: Ukrainian family shot at checkpoint while trying to flee