THIS Ukrainian footballer begged parents to flee Bucha

Washington: My parents would not be ''alive'' if they were in Bucha, said the Ukrainian professional footballer, player for a Hong Kong club, who begged his parents to leave the country after the Russian bombs went off a kilometer from their home.

However, the parents said they would be fine hiding out in their old apartment in the leafy suburb of Bucha, CNN reported on Sunday.

The ongoing conflict between the two nations started on February 24 when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

CNN report said that the parents were eventually convinced and they fled just before the first ''Russian tanks rolled in''.

Now, they are awaiting refugee status in Germany and tearfully thank their son and daughter with each telephone call, CNN report said.

"Days after convincing them, I saw videos of crushed streets -- everything looked horrible, like after the Second World War. Then I realised, 'damn it, this looks very familiar to me,'" CNN quoted Aleks Shliakotin, a goalkeeper for Hong Kong Premier League club Hong Kong Rangers, as saying.

"Then the guy in the video says it's Vokzal'na Street, Bucha. That's literally my street, where I spent my childhood, where I went to school, where I have walked thousands of times.

He said, ''If my parents had still been there, they probably wouldn't be alive. Our house was destroyed.''

"A few weeks after that, there were scenes of people just laying on the road with their hands tied, shot in their heads. It's just ... impossible to process. Thank God they left."

Now, the footballer does not know what happened to his parents' apartment as all their neighbors also left. (UNI)