LIFE IN KYIV
EITHER the Russians are terrible shots, or they don’t give a damn where their missiles land.
It’s the morning after the Kremlin’s latest savage air assault on Ukraine. I am standing behind a block of flats in a commuter town north of Kyiv, called Vyshhorod.
Four storeys of brick stand incinerated from the inside out. People appear at gaping holes in the edifice, lowering belongings salvaged from the wreckage.
A crater in the courtyard, a few metres from the building, marks the spot where the missile hit.
Ivan, a 76-year-old neighbour, said he was on a walk the previous afternoon, when he saw the missile making a beeline for the building.
Then came the blast and a ball of fire that soon engulfed the homes of more than 100 peaceful civilians. Around half a dozen died instantly and dozens more have been hospitalised.
“I don’t get it,” Ivan exclaims. “There’s nothing that even vaguely resembles a military target in this neighbourhood.” What does surround the doomed building are half a dozen or more other blocks of flats that had their windows blown out and balconies mangled by the blast.
Another elderly man passing by the scene, who declined to be photographed or give his name, said he was on his way to his balcony for a smoke when the blast from the strike sent glass flying into his flat and knocked him on his back. He shows me his injured leg.
“Its a good thing I did not make it on to the balcony,” he grumbles, before limping off.
Others recall hearing the whistle of the missile’s descent before the explosion.
An elderly woman approaches me in tears as I am talking to others, to ask me if knew about a woman in her 70s who had been killed while seeking shelter in the building’s basement.
The largest holes in the building are at ground level. The nearby playground has been levelled and the air is filled with freezing rain and the smell of smoke.
Back in Kyiv, people huddle in the Metro to keep warm or recharge their phones at public power points.
It will be dark soon. My flat is freezing cold and there’s almost no light to be seen against the city’s skyline. But the water is back on and hope burns eternal.