Saturday that exploded with a missile over Dnipro: stories of residents of building destroyed by Russia on January 14

Dnipro city, a day off, lunchtime. At two o'clock the alarm sounds, which will last about three hours. During another massive Russian missile attack on Ukraine, a missile hit a 9-story residential building. According to the Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko, there were 16 entrances and about 1700 residents in that building. Almost immediately, relatives, acquaintances, and friends of the victims in the building in Dnipro began to post on social networks. We have collected several stories.

Rusana Babkina

Rusana is from Mariupol. Her mother, sister, and grandmother lived in the building that collapsed as a result of the attack. On her Facebook page, she told the story of her family. Her parents joined the Territorial Defense in their native Mariupol on the first day of the full-scale Russian invasion. Later, the defenders were at Azovstal, and on May 17, they were ordered to leave and surrender. Her mother was released in 5 months, on October 17, Rusana's father is still in captivity. Rusana and her grandmother left the occupied city for Dnipro in late March. There she met her sister, who left shelled Kharkiv on March 5. The Russians destroyed the house of Rusana's father and grandmother. During April and May, Rusana constantly posted appeals for help to the defenders of Azovstal, the conditions of the soldiers there, and appeals from their commanders on her page.

Rusana cites the last correspondence with her family before the January 14 strike:

“The last time I talked to my mother on the phone was at 03:07 pm for 2 minutes and 5 seconds.

"Everything seems to be quiet, take some rest".

It was a day off, Saturday, my mother was supposed to be on duty in the Armed Forces, but stayed at home because of ARVI, my sister was cleaning up another rented apartment, and my grandmother had just finished frying chebureks in the kitchen...”

Currently, nothing is known about the fate of Rusana's relatives.

Anastasiia Shvets

The photo of Arsen Drozdaiev, which he made specially for hromadske, was spread in networks and media. In the photo, the girl is sitting near her own bathtub in the ruins of the apartment and waiting for rescue. She is holding a New Year's tinsel in her hands. This is Anastasiia Shvets, she is 23 years old. In February, before the large-scale invasion of Russia, she completed her master's degree at the University of Customs and Finance in Dnipro.

Anastasiia says this about the attack:

“I was covered by the door in the bed, part of the kitchen is in the room, bathroom, kitchen, corridor, and pantry are gone, there is an abyss and I can see the other part of the entrance, someone else's entrance. It saved me, I am almost intact, despite the wound on my head and my injured bare legs.

I do not know where my parents are. They say they saw them alive, I am sure they were in the kitchen, which is no longer there. I did not want to escape, I wanted my parents to be found”.

Anastasiia's boyfriend, who fought in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, died in September. The girl's mother Natalia helps animals and does needlework and baking to order.

Maryna and Andrii's family

Arina Miedviedieva, a close friend of Maryna Fihurna, who disappeared under the rubble, wrote a post on Instagram: “In the photo are my friends. Maryna Fihurna and her husband Andrii Osynskyi. Last night they came to visit their parents in Dnipro from Odesa because they had not seen them for a year because of the damn war. Everyone who knows me closely understands that Maryna is like a sister to me. The missile hit their entrance. There is no information about them! They are not in hospitals either. All relatives were in the apartment”.

As of 21:00 on January 14, Maryna's mother was found and taken to Mechnikov Hospital in Dnipro, she is in intensive care. Arina is waiting for any information about the other people.

Maryna studied at the National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine. She and her beloved Andrii got married in 2015. He is an Internet marketer.

The Halych family

Yevhen Halych wrote: “This is my grandfather, who is almost 90 years old, survived the war, and now he has to live it again. Let people see and know that even the enemy does not deserve the pain that ordinary pensioners experience.”

Yevhen, Maksym, and their older sister Tetiana have been posting appeals for help on their Instagram, indicating that their mother and grandfather were left homeless due to the attack on January 14. Their grandfather was wounded, and a photo of the man covered in blood was posted in the Instagram stories.

Two friends and mothers

Friends Iryna Salamatina and Olha Usova died under the rubble. Both were dentists. On January 14 they were passing by the building that was hit by a missile. Olha has a 3-year-old son. Olha was from Donetsk. She worked in a dental volunteer team, going on a specially equipped bus to treat the military on missions. Olha's relative wrote in memory of the fallen women: “Unfortunately, there is no way for me to be there instead of you, I would change without thinking...”

Iryna has two children, a 13-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter. They were in Poland for some time in spring but returned home.

Serviceman Maksym Omelianenko

31-year-old Maksym is now defending the hottest point of the frontline — Bakhmut. A few weeks before the shelling of Dnipro he was thinking about serving: “If I die young, I promise that I will be okay, no one lives forever, but I hope that when the time comes for me to go, I will go with a smile (...) Life is a journey, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to live and learn from pain.”

Having learned about the tragedy in his house, he went to Dnipro. His mother Liudmyla, dog, and cat were under the rubble. His mother was rescued from their apartment on the top floor, she survived in a part of the kitchen, pinned by a stove.

Before the Bakhmut direction, Maksym fought in Kherson Oblast, and before the Russian invasion in February 2022, he worked as a coach in Dnipro.

Maksym's cousin Anna Haievska also tells about the collapse of her childhood home: “After yesterday's tragedy in Dnipro, part of my family was left homeless, because two of my aunts live in the same building, just in different entrances”.

Master Inna Ivinska

Master Inna Ivinska and her family survived the tragedy but lost their home. The woman is a doctor by education, she worked for about 15 years in her specialty, then mastered the creative occupation and became a master of making Ukrainian folk toys. She is a member of the National Union of Masters of Folk Art of Ukraine. She stayed in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war and since March has been conducting free workshops for everyone, offline and online, on making rag dolls. She said it was her way to help women in new circumstances, art therapy.

Together with Liudmyla Malysheva from Dnipro, they launched the project “Ukrainian Woman as a Symbol of Uniting Generations of the Nation”, where they gathered local women for workshops to revive folk doll-making. One of her recent charity events was dedicated to St. Nicholas Day when Inna taught people how to make dolls, which were then distributed on the streets of Dnipro as part of the “St. Nicholas will not forget about you” campaign.

The Zhuravskyi family

Roman and Olena Zhuravskyi with two children fled from the frontline city of Toretsk, Zaporizhzhia region. Olena is pregnant with their third child. They lived in a destroyed nine-story building with their 73-year-old grandmother. That day she stayed at home because of poor health, and the family went to church. The grandmother died, the family friend Serhii Pavlovskyi said.

Children

It is known that thirteen children were injured in Dnipro. Six were found alive under the rubble. One child died.

Dnipro resident Olena Dovhal wrote after the attack that on January 15 her daughter Vika was supposed to have classes in the area near the destroyed building. The classes were canceled. Her elder daughter's classmate from Educational Complex No. 111, Maksym Bohutskyi, is probably under the rubble, he has not been found yet.

Myroslava Movchan, a 4th-grade student of Dnipro Educational Complex No. 66, is in a serious condition in intensive care. She has head and limb injuries and lacerations. Olena also shared information from the director of this educational complex: “As a result of the missile attack, the life of a student of the grade 9-A, the newly elected president of the student republic "Wings", a wonderful child Mariia Lebid, ended. The apartment [of the girl] was destroyed...”

As of 15:30 on January 15, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported 25 dead, 73 wounded, and 39 rescued. Search operations continue, but the fate of 43 more people remains unknown. The building is disconnected from all utility lines.

On January 15, a three-day mourning for the victims was announced in Dnipro.