Kristina Kurapova does not know if her husband, a soldier in the Ukrainian military, is dead or alive.

“I haven’t spoken to him in five days,” the mother of two said.

When asked where her husband was fighting, tears fell down her cheeks as she mouthed the word “Mariupol”.

Beside Ms Kurapova lay her children, a one-year-old boy called Timur and his sister Sophia, three, fast asleep in a bed cobbled together from the cushions of old garden furniture and some thin duvets.

The violence in Mariupol has been reported worldwide. For almost a month, the port city has been subjected to near-constant Russian bombardment.

Some 150,000 have left, with the remaining 300,000 or so people there forced to survive without water, food or electricity. Nearly 5,000 people have been killed, including 210 children, according to local authorities. Half of the buildings are reported to have been destroyed. The devastation has been likened to Grozny, Aleppo or Stalingrad.

Ms Kurapova, 28, said when she last spoke to her husband, the connection was so poor that she could only hear “one in every three words”. However, from what little she could make out, they were the words of a devoted husband.

“He told me he loves me so much and that while the fighting is really hard, they are trying to protect the city,” she said.