Burning alive in their homes: Eyewitnesses recount Russia's deadly missile barrage on Ternopil

When the air raid alert was declared, my two little daughters and I were sleeping in a rented apartment. We woke up to the first explosions caused by the Shaheds. When we went out on the street, we saw light beams from machine-gun bursts as air defense units were trying to shoot down another Shahed UAV heading for the residential neighborhood. We were lucky because a woman who had come out of her section entrance to go to work let me and the children inside; we survived the explosion there.

The granddaughter was wearing a white jacket

We reached the shelter at School No. 22 together with a middle-aged man and the first strikes of cruise missiles. His jacket and black hair — everything — was white, either from ash or plaster.

"I barely escaped; the missile hit the neighboring building, it threw me against the wall, and then all the plaster poured down on me," the man said, breathlessly.

At that time, neither I nor the half-thousand people also sitting in the school shelter even realized the horrific consequences of these strikes. Realization came with the first all-clear and the pitch-black smoke that covered almost the entire sky.

Somewhere very close, a fire was raging, and walls were collapsing with a crackle. Literally 50 meters from School No. 22 and Kindergarten No. 9, a Russian cruise missile pierced a nine-story building on 8 V. Stusa Street, right through. The Ternopil Oblast State Emergency Service reported that apartments from the third to the ninth floor were destroyed.

People were already gathering near the destroyed building. From the missile strike, part of the high-rise fell onto the kindergarten grounds. Children's jackets, boots, toys, and pages from books lay underfoot. On one of the trees hung a charred and torn old Soviet rug. One of the women was walking around meticulously searching for something among the debris.

"What are you looking for, ma'am?" I asked. She replied that she was trying to find at least some documents that had flown out of her acquaintances' apartment. What had happened to her friends was unknown; they lived on the eighth floor of the destroyed building, but the family’s grandfather, who had come to the high-rise, asked her to search for the documents. The woman pointed to a gray-haired man who had red eyes from tears.

He refused to talk, only saying that he simply could not force a word out of himself. And when the phone rang, he started speaking loudly that his granddaughter was wearing a white jacket and they were still looking for her.

Later, photos of a woman's body in a long white jacket were posted on social media; she was found dead under the rubble. Apparently, the woman simply did not go outside in time to reach the shelter when the Russian missile struck.

They're looking for a mother with two children over there

Not far from the high-rise stands Ms. Olha, watching the fire being extinguished. The retiree has lived in this building her whole life.

"I don't know by what miracle I escaped. We live on the third floor. I got out already when our home started burning. None of my neighbors on our floor died. But up there — on the eighth and ninth — it's just horrible. Entire families. Over there, they are searching for a mother with two little children; the husband seems to have survived," Ms. Olha said.

Another Russian strike hit the building on 15 Kvitnia Street. As eyewitnesses said, the missile literally exploded on approach to the building, and therefore, a huge ball of fire scorched almost 55 apartments. People died in their homes there, burning alive. There is no crater from the missile strike in the building's yard. If it had hit the building itself, the number of dead would have been much higher. Locals are convinced that the Russians deliberately targeted the residential building to cause more casualties.

Overall, according to the State Emergency Service, as of Wednesday evening, 26 people were killed in Ternopil as a result of the missile and drone attack, including three children. One child died in the hospital's ICU; her condition had been very serious. Nearly 100 Ternopil residents were injured, including 18 children. All of them were diagnosed with severe burns.

By evening, rescuers managed to pull a living 20-year-old man from under the rubble of the building on V. Stusa Street. The young man's name is Bohdan. His mother had been near the building since morning, with tears in her eyes, asking State Emergency Service workers and police to find her son. The 20-year-old Ternopil resident managed to call the rescue service himself and stayed on the line the whole time. The man spent almost eight hours under the rubble.

However, according to Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Klymenko, who arrived in Ternopil, more people may still be under the rubble. Therefore, debris clearance at the building continued all night and on Thursday. A mourning period has been declared in the city at this time.

Author: Zoriana Dovhan