Civilians in Kyiv traumatised by a vicious Russian drone attack in the early hours of Sunday morning have warned that Putin won’t stop his campaign of terror. At least 11 people, including two children, were injured after huge fires broke out following drone strikes on a high-rise residential block and shopping centre in a northern suburb of the city. Woken by a series of deafening explosions, Olga Chairkiska, 72, walked onto the balcony of her 8th-floor flat to see a ball of flames in the street below.
“I was watching my two disabled children sleeping, running about the flat, wondering what to do,” she said. “I was just thinking if the ceiling collapsed, I wanted to die immediately rather than feeling any pain.” Isolated in her Soviet-era apartment block, Chairkiska knows making a quick escape with her two children, who are both in wheelchairs, is impossible.
“I don’t have any weapons – so why is Russia shooting at me? Go and fight on a battlefield against Ukrainian soldiers,” she added.
Raisa, who did not wish to give her full name, was just inches away from being hit by a door blown from its hinges. When her windows were blown out by seven exploding vehicles, she had fortunately pulled a blanket over her head that blocked the glass shards.
As she surveyed the wreckage of her bedroom, Raisa heard the screams of the two-year-old living in the flat above. She was reduced to tears as she recalled learning that the toddler’s mother was being treated for severe injuries to her hands.
“Putin hates Ukraine,” she said, dabbing her eyes at the memory of the night before, “to him, we are just an obstacle.
“Children in nursery have to stop class and go into the basement. Why? What have they done to deserve this?”
Olena Nikolenko, 47, was staying at her elderly parents’ home when she was awoken by the blast.
The bank employee has lived in Kyiv for three years since the full-scale invasion and has seen explosions, but never one so close.
“In our reality, you go to bed not knowing whether you’ll ever wake again,” she said, staring at the crater in the ground left by the explosion.
