HELP SAVE THEM

 » 100,000 kids are at mercy of Putin’s troops  » Mirror joins Brit charity in huge relief bid

- NIGEL NELSON Political Editor and JACK CLOVER

HELPLESS and bewildered orphans cram into a basement as Vladimir Putin’s grotesque bombardment echoes all around them.

Babies, six to a cot, lie unaware of the horrors that have condemned Ukraine to a living hell.

Toddlers sit compliantly, cajoled by carers doing their best to maintain some calm amid the madness.

The sad scene in Kyiv is echoed in 700 children’s homes housing 100,000 orphans, half of them disabled.

Food and water is running out. Staff numbers are hit as 60,000 seek sanctuary with their own families.

Carers say they rush the kids to safety below ground by announcing “Children – explosions”.

They also tell them to eat every scrap on their plates – unable to guarantee when the next meal will be.

Just 2,500 orphans have been evacuated – with the British charity Hope and Homes for Children helping 100 to safety in Dnipro and Vorzel.

Relentless shelling means it is too perilous to move the youngsters in our Page One picture.

Today, the Sunday Mirror launches an urgent Orphan Appeal to send out supplies.

Labour leader Keir Starmer, ex-forces chief Lord Dannatt and Bond actress Olga Kurylenko – who has Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian ancestry – are backing our campaign.

SHOCK Hope and Homes rescued 50 children, including two babies and two with disabilities, from Dnipro, in central Ukraine. Another 50 from Vorzel, near the capital, were bussed away when their orphanage was hit by an illegal Russian cluster bomb.

Mercifully there were no casualties. In Dnipro, Hope and Home aide Daria, 40, explained how the horror unfolded there.