Hundreds of Ukrainian orphans have been leaving for Poland after escaping the fighting in the south of the country, while another group have arrived in Israel.

More than 200 children, from teenagers to toddlers, arrived in the western city of Lviv on Saturday after a 24-hour train journey with their carers, having left an orphanage in one of Ukraine’s conflict zones.

The 215 children had travelled 588 miles (947km) from their orphanage in Zaporizhzhia in southeast Ukraine, to the relative safety of Lviv, from where they are travelling on to Poland.

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They left Zaporizhzhia on the day Russian troops attacked a nearby nuclear power station, an attack some believe could have caused a nuclear catastrophe.

Olha Kycher, the director of the Zaporizhzhia Central Christian Orphanage, said: “My heart is being torn apart. I’m sorry… It is tough.

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“When families are separated, it is very hard. I’m sorry, I simply lack words. And I feel so sorry for these children, they are so young.

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“Putin is saying that he is doing something here, but he is simply killing people, simply killing people.

“I don’t understand why the Russian people cannot believe that we are being bombarded, that we and our children are being killed. It is very hard, I am sorry.

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“We don’t want to leave Ukraine, we love it. It is so hard. But unfortunately we must leave. We really want to come back.”

After waiting at Lviv station, the children boarded buses for their new home in neighbouring Poland.

The older children looked after the younger ones, some of whom held on to cuddly toys.

Vladimir Kovtun, 16, said he felt safe now.

“It is terrifying to stay in Zaporizhzhia when air raid sirens go off and we must constantly hide in the basement.”

More than 65,000 refugees passed through the station on Friday alone, Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovy said.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was at Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday to meet a group of 100 Ukrainian Jewish orphans who had fled the fighting. Later flights brought another 300.

They had been living in Zhytomyr in central Ukraine before being brought to Israel by the KKL-JNF organization.

Mr Naftali told his cabinet that as well as welcoming Jews, ministers would also allow a small number of non-Jewish Ukrainians to come, too.

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More than 1.3 million Ukrainians have left the country since the Russian invasion started on 24 February, the United Nations said on Saturday.

Figures released by the United Nation’s Refugee Agency (UNHCR) show that 1.37 million people have fled Ukraine into neighbouring European countries after the military offensive ordered by Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

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