Glass crackles as Liudmyla Polianychko walks through her shattered home outside the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where a Russian drone strike on an ammunition depot on Friday sparked blasts that killed 38 people and ravaged her neighbourhood.
Debris littered her young daughter’s bedroom. Charred artillery shells and belts of ammunition lie scattered across her carefully manicured lawn.
“But we’re alive, and thank god for that,” said the 48-year-old entrepreneur.
Polianychko was still cleaning up on Sunday after the deadliest Russian strike of the year, whose devastating effects President Volodymyr Zelenskiy blamed on official negligence.
Friday’s attack hit a military facility in the village of Myla that held artillery shells, mines, drones and other ammunition, he said, describing the storage of such items near civilian homes as a “crime”.
The strike set off secondary explosions, setting the quaint neighbourhood ablaze. Hundreds of people were evacuated.
On Sunday, Zelenskiy said first responders had extinguished most of the fires, but that contamination in the area was significant and the work would likely drag on.
Rescuers were still searching for four people reported missing, he added.
SERIES OF EXPLOSIONS
Standing in a battered hallway of her home, Polianychko described hearing a series of blasts before being showered with glass. As she sheltered in the bathroom with her daughter, a wall collapsed on them.
Polianychko said she was unaware of the ammunition warehouse nearby.
“We didn’t think that there could be something like that. You can see all those unexploded shells and bullets,” she said of the debris on her lawn.
The strike was the second in two months on a Kyiv-area ammunition warehouse that sparked secondary blasts killing local residents. Zelenskiy said criminal cases have already been opened into the matter.
WORSENING AIR ATTACKS ON KYIV
Friday’s attack was part of an extended Russian air campaign against Kyiv and the surrounding region.
Jet-powered drones have swarmed the city and nearby towns for four consecutive days, killing residents, damaging homes and upending daily life.
Russia has escalated its air war on Ukraine with increasing numbers of elusive ballistic missiles and the high-speed drones, which Kyiv lacks the air defences to shoot down.
On Sunday, Zelenskiy said Russia launched nearly 2,000 strike drones, more than 1,600 bombs, and 31 missiles at his country this week alone.
“We are seeking just responses to every Russian strike and crime,” he said. “They will certainly come.”
