- Hezbollah battles troops on border as Israel pounds Lebanon
- Alcaraz, Sinner breeze into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Bagnaia wins Japan MotoGP sprint to cut Martin's lead
- Alcaraz breezes into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Gaza cultural heritage brought to light in Geneva
- 'Bullet for democracy': Trump returns to site of rally shooting
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- South Korean cult-horror series 'Hellbound' returns at BIFF
- Nepalis fear more floods as climate change melts glaciers
- Honduras arrests environmentalist's alleged murderer
- Padres pitcher Musgrove needs elbow surgery
- Supreme Court lets stand rules to curb mercury, methane emissions
- Boston beat Denver in NBA exhibition season opener, but Jokic says omens are good
- Chagos diaspora angry at lack of input on islands' fate
- Biden says 'not confident' of peaceful US election
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- Lukaku stars as Napoli beat Como to hold Serie A top spot
- Ohtani set for MLB playoff debut as Dodgers face Padres
- Pogba's drug ban cut to 18 months from four years
- Devine leads New Zealand to big win over India in Women's T20 World Cup
- Bosnia floods kill 16 people
- EU court blocks French ban on vegetable 'steak' labelling
- Prosecutors seek dismissal of rape charges against French rugby players
- Meta AI turns pictures into videos with sound
- Bolivia's Morales says claims he raped a minor are a 'lie'
- MLB Reds hire two-time champion Francona as manager
- Daniel Maldini receives first Italy call-up for Nations League
- US dockworkers return to ports after three-day strike
- Ancelotti points finger at Madrid's 'lack of intensity'
- Haiti reeling after 70 killed in gang attack
- Five Czech kids in hospital over TikTok 'piercing challenge'
- What happens next in Iran-Israel conflict?
- Country star Garth Brooks denies rape accusations
- Stubbs hits maiden century as South Africa make 343-4 against Ireland
- DR Congo to begin mpox vaccination campaign Saturday in east
- Odegaard injury has forced Arsenal to be 'different', says Arteta
- Ratcliffe refuses to guarantee Ten Hag's Man Utd future
- Meta must limit data use for targeted ads: EU court
- Mauritius to hold legislative election on November 10
- Britain qualify for America's Cup final after 60-year wait
- IMF asks Sri Lanka to protect hard-won gains
- Morata returns to Spain Nations League squad after injury
- Irish regulator to probe Ryanair use of facial recognition
- Public allowed to see video evidence in France mass rape trial
- US hiring soars past expectations in sign of resilient market
- Under-fire Ten Hag 'together' with Man Utd hierarchy
- Guardiola talks of Man City love affair as financial hearing rumbles on
- De Bruyne out of Belgium Nations League squad
- Japanese trainer Yahagi hopes Shin Emperor achieves 50-year-old Arc dream
- UK's Starmer hails 'landmark' carbon capture funding
North of Kyiv, a ruined town emerges after Russia leaves
Borodianka has been turned inside out. The buildings are flayed open, spilling clothing into the treetops.
A trip along the long straight road through the modest Ukrainian town is now a procession of the grimly absurd.
An apartment block is hollowed by a blast, a charred mattress hangs out in the open sky. A burnt out tank is parked in the guts of a savaged building. Children's toys are strewn everywhere in the street, too many to count.
Nothing is where it should be. The details of devastation are infinite, the scale overwhelming. Some homes are simply no longer there.
The Russian retreat last week has left clues of the battle waged to keep a grip on Borodianka, just 50 kilometres (30 miles) north-west of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Doddering down the muddied central road pushing a trolley of aid parcels, Mykola Kazmyrenko cannot comprehend it.
"I can't even look at it, it makes me want to cry," the 57-year-old said. "People are void of their homes."
Though AFP saw no bodies in a short trip to Borodianka, locals say many of their neighbours were slain here.
"I know five civilians were killed," said 58-year-old Rafik Azimov. "But we don't know how many more are left in the basements of the ruined buildings after the bombardments."
"No-one tried to get them out yet, so it's unknown."
- 'Love your Ukraine' -
In the town of Bucha -- between Borodianka and Kyiv -- AFP saw 20 dead bodies on a single street on Saturday.
Though the human cost in Borodianka is not yet fully apparent, the devastation is more complete. Every address presents a fresh, unfathomable vista.
Most windows are shattered and lives once lived inside are now visible from the street. A fridge peppered with magnets, a brown oriental carpet hanging on a wall, a block of kitchen knives somehow undisturbed.
Up the nine-storey apartment block whole rooms are disappeared, disgorged on the ground below.
Only the wallpaper is left behind: brown on the fourth floor, blue on the fifth, gold on the sixth.
Through a gaping hole in the building the sky is visible behind. Now these homes are a helter-skelter of tumbledown brickwork and dead metal, scraping in the harsh Ukrainian wind.
Shattered glass tinkles and stray cats mewl among the wreckage. The lawn on the roundabout leading into the town has been churned by tank tracks.
Mobile phone signal has evaporated here but two people have hiked to the top of a block of flats to scrounge for reception.
Other hardy residents venture into the homes, fishing out bundles of belongings. But explosive removal teams have yet to do their work -- it is a risky gamble.
In the centre square a looming bust of poet Taras Shevchenko -- an icon of Ukrainian culture -- is still standing. But above his brow and on the dome of his head there are two bullet holes.
The verse inscribed beneath implores: "Love your Ukraine, love it. During ferocious times, and in the last of the difficult moments."
- 'Under the ruins' -
From the buckled, demolished bridge on the outskirts of the town Valentyna Petrenko has travelled from her nearby village to bear witness.
"When the Russians came, they took away our mobile phones and looted houses. We tried to behave normally with them not to provoke them," said the 67-year-old.
"A missile hit our village, my house was ruined, everything was ruined," she said. "The Russians committed atrocities, many atrocities."
Volodymyr Nahornyi rides his bike out from Borodianka but must abandon it at the destroyed bridge.
He picks his way down and then up the ruin made impassable by vehicle, likely to prevent the advance of Russian armour.
He joins Petrenko on the other side and looks back to where he came -- the town where nothing is as it should be.
"All apartments were robbed and vandalised," he says. "Everything is ruined, everything is damaged."
"I buried six people," he added. "More people are under the ruins."
S.Pimentel--PC