Report from ruined apartment building in Kyiv's Solomyanskyi district

Підтримати

"It's very difficult to see all this"

Overnight into June 17, Russia launched a massive combined attack on Kyiv. Debris fell across various districts, but the most damage was inflicted on a building in the Vidradnyi microdistrict, where a missile struck the seventh of its eight sections, completely destroying the concrete structures and causing the basement to collapse.

“It flew into the building, and I hid by the door. I saw it fly over, and then—boom! All the windows here shattered,” says Anatoliy, carrying broken window frames from an apartment in the fifth section.

The shockwave was so strong that only a few intact windows remain here and there. The plastic film that is distributed to seal the holes quickly runs out.

“We have nothing to cover,” says a young woman named Daryna, searching for plywood with tears in her eyes. “The plastic film won’t help us. Our balcony was completely blown away, and all the windows on the sides are broken. Everything was torn apart.”

I help an elderly woman trying to lift six sheets of plywood. Together, we carry them to her nephew’s apartment in the first section. There’s no electricity, water, or gas, and the elevator isn’t working.

“One window fell out from inside, another was broken. In some sections, the doors are completely blocked from the inside. It’s impossible to exit—people had to pry them open,” says Ms. Anna.

We carry the plywood up the stairs to the eighth floor. Not a single window remains intact on any floor of the common corridor. The same goes for the apartment we’re heading to. Debris is everywhere—on the stove, in the mugs, among the furniture.

I walk further toward the section that no longer exists. The elderly woman is carrying out the shattered furniture from her apartment herself. Mrs. Olena is alone because her relatives are abroad.

She says, “I heard the roar, the noise, the horror. I saw some lights; something was burning. But what was on fire—I can’t tell. It’s so hard to see all this, to hear all this. Oh God, where does this misfortune come from?”

“To hell with them!” her neighbor replies.

"Thank God, it's all intact!"

I find myself directly in front of the seventh entry section, which has become a mountain of construction debris. In one pile, there’s concrete mixed with bent bathtubs, clothing, and children’s toys.

Nearby, a man and a woman are crying. They have been waiting since the early hours for rescuers to clear the rubble, under which their son is likely trapped. A man nearby, who hasn’t left the rescuers’ side, hopes they will find his mother alive. Psychologists are trying to offer support.

Among those waiting for a loved one is Valeria. Her 59-year-old father lives alone in the eighth section, next to the completely destroyed one.

“My father called at four in the morning, got through. He said the windows were blown out, the doors were broken. He hasn’t been reachable since. But the phone is ringing,” she explains.

Rescuers checked the apartment—it’s open, but the man isn’t there. The police have “pinged” the phone’s geolocation—it shows he’s not in the apartment but somewhere near the building.

During the time I spend near the ruined building, rescuers uncover and bring down a body every 20 to 30 minutes. According to official information, there are already 23 confirmed dead. I’ve seen them recover four with my own eyes.

Nearby, cars continue to smolder. At a kindergarten next to the destroyed building, they are removing remnants of window frames.

Rescuers, along with dog handlers, continue to sift through the rubble, searching for people.

“So, how’s your daughter’s apartment? Is it intact?” I call and ask the driver I rode with this morning.

“Thank God, it’s intact. And my nephew’s, who lives nearby, is fine too. But across the road in that building—it's a nightmare. Nothing survived,” he replies.