Sandbags pile up to save statue of Ukraine's national poet amid war | IN PICS

Ukraine is currently under attack by Russia with missiles damaging residential buildings, schools and monuments.

As war rages on, civilians are now trying to save the statue of Ukraine's national poet - Taras Shevchenko.

Work is underway to erect sand barricades to protect statues.

Taras Shevchenko was the country's foremost nineteenth-century bard and one of the first to write in Ukrainian.

Workers with lifting equipment busy themselves around the imposing black cast-iron statue.