War correspondent rescues 4-year-old girl from drone strike fire in Kyiv Oblast
During a Russian drone attack on Kyiv Oblast overnight into Wednesday, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty war correspondent Marian Kushnir rescued a 4-year-old girl from a burning apartment building in Bilohorodka where her mother and the woman's partner were killed.
Russian forces struck the area with Shahed drones, causing a direct hit on a residential building in Bilohorodka near Kyiv. Residents initially mistook the explosion for a gas blast as they did not hear the drone approaching.
Radio Liberty war correspondent Marian Kushnir, who lives in the same building, said that when he heard the sound of the explosion, he grabbed his tactical backpack and ran to help. He managed to save a 4-year-old girl.
After handing the child over to the neighbors, he returned to the apartment and tried to save the adults, but the second floor and stairs were completely engulfed in fire, so he couldn't reach them. The child's mother and her roommate died.
According to him, they lived on the top floor of a two-story apartment. The woman and man were on the top floor, and the girl was downstairs. Thanks to this, she survived. Now the child is with her biological father.
“I looked out the window and saw that the upper part of the house was on fire, took my tactical medical backpack with me and ran upstairs. The door was open in one of the apartments, and I saw a child lying on the sofa. She was screaming, ‘Mom, Mom.’ Mom didn’t answer, and the upper floor was on fire. I tried to go to the second floor, but everything was too hot, neighbors came running with fire extinguishers, tried to put it out, but to no avail. I lowered the child down and handed it to the neighbors, because I was going back upstairs,” says Marian Kushnir.
Viktoria Ruban, a spokeswoman for the Main Department of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Kyiv Oblast, said that among the victims are a woman and two children with an acute stress reaction and a man with carbon monoxide poisoning. Their condition is satisfactory.
According to her, the fire broke out on the 7th floor and covered an area of 600 m2. 45 rescuers and 11 pieces of equipment worked to extinguish the fire. As of 11:00 a.m., the rescuers had completed their work, and the police and local authorities were working on the scene.
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