An episode described as “horror” took place in October last year
“It was around three in the morning. My wife was sleeping. I woke up to the air raid siren. Then we saw a ball of fire, a blinding light. For a moment we stopped seeing. The explosion… I didn’t hear it, I felt the building shake.” The testimony is from Volodymyr, 70 years old, resident of the center of Kiev.
It was early morning when the routine of a 17-story building next to the Zvirynetska metro station fell apart in seconds. A Shahed drone hit the building and forced dozens of residents to fight for survival amid flames, smoke and shrapnel.
This Friday, October 10, a wave of Russian missiles and drones hit energy infrastructure and residential areas in several regions of Ukraine, leaving more than half of the capital without electricity.
Volodymyr lives on the 16th floor of the affected building and remembers the impact as a moment suspended in time. “The windows and doors were ripped out. My wife fell out of bed and crawled over broken glass. Smoke filled the apartment within minutes. I screamed, ‘To the elevator! We took what we could and ran.”
The drone hit the central part of the structure, destroying apartments between the 6th and 11th floors. On the lower floors, the water used by firefighters to extinguish the flames ended up flooding several houses.
Minutes after the attack, the building where Volodymyr lived looked like this (Dan Bashakov/AP)
Officially, no deaths were recorded, although Volodymyr argues that “two neighbors died from smoke inhalation”. “An elderly man did not survive after being hospitalized. My wife seriously injured her leg and was unable to walk for two weeks. There were people with their hair burning. It was chaos,” he recalls to the Kyiv Post.
At another entrance to the building, Lighti Biryukova, 35, faced the same night of terror. That day, he had his mother at home. “We were sleeping in one room and not in the hallway as usual,” she says.
“Glass started falling from the balcony. At first I thought it was just the effect of the shock wave. Then I smelled smoke. Our building was burning, near the second entrance.”
Despite his fear, he guarantees that he remained lucid. “I have an anxiety disorder, so I was prepared. I imagined situations like this every day. First: survive, without panic.”
The destruction left a trail of suffering among neighbors. “My Physics teacher suffered serious burns and her husband died the next day. A cat inhaled smoke and suffered burns, but was saved. A small dog did not survive”, Lighti further reports.
Four months have passed since the remarkable episode, but several difficulties still persist. Heard by the same newspaper, residents now complain about the lack of conditions. “We have electricity, but no heating,” explains Lighti. “The elevators freeze. Sometimes there is no water. We use gas heaters, bioethanol fireplaces borrowed from friends, makeshift heaters made from bricks and candles. We sleep in sleeping bags. The kitchen is the warmest room.”
The war reached the 4-year mark last Tuesday. As in Kiev, several localities are currently experiencing electricity outages and lack of heating at a time when the country continues to experience freezing temperatures.
