A Ukrainian woman who had evacuated from northern Ukraine to Poland says she has witnessed atrocities committed by Russian soldiers.

Speaking to NHK on Thursday, 26-year-old Tatyana Harkusha said that she and her family left their home town of Bucha, which is near the capital Kyiv, by car two days after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.

Harkusha said that she had seen a vehicle engulfed in flames moving backward. She said that she could not save the people in the car as they appeared to be dead.

She and her family were hoping to survive and evacuate to safety.

It took two weeks for them to reach Poland, where they are now. During their way to escape, she said, she and her family feared they could be killed if they were found by Russians.

She recalled stories that she had heard from an acquaintance who had remained in Bucha.

She said the acquaintance told her a number of people had died due to a shortage of food and water as they hid in shelters for weeks.

She also quoted her acquaintance as saying that some residents lost their lives when they tried to move the bodies for burial as Russian soldiers had booby trapped the dead bodies.

The witness told Harkusha that he was watching the street in the town while hiding behind a fence and he saw a resident shot to death by gunfire from a tank. He said the pedestrian was killed for no reason while just walking on the street.

Harkusha said she has been informed that Russian soldiers fatally shot people in front of their children. The soldiers then threatened to kill the children too, unless they followed their instructions.

She said she wondered how the children could survive without their parents.

She said angrily that Russian soldiers were animals and their acts were inhuman, disrespecting human lives.

Recalling the devastation in Bucha, she said that Russian forces have leveled almost all the houses and buildings there, and they deprived the town of everything.

She said people cannot even walk in the parks as the Russians mined them.

She said that her beautiful hometown was erased from the face of the Earth by the Russians, and they destroyed her dreams.