"The war was always close to this village in an area of lakes, forests and fields, on the borders of Poland. These are the bloodlands, as historian Timothy Snyder called them, the slice of Europe where Hitler and Stalin murdered millions of people between the early 1930s and the end of World War II. We don't really have to go back that far."
"Alicja and Tomasz Wesolowski, retirees from Wyryki, are alive by a miracle. They were used to hearing planes, but the aircraft they heard flying over their three-story house next to the road that runs through the village that morning was strangely close. The noise was louder than usual. It was 6:30 a.m., and they had woken up a little earlier than usual and left their bedroom in the attic. Tomasz was watching the news downstairs on the television: the Polish Air Force had intercepted several Russian drones that evening."
"Throughout the day, after law enforcement had blocked the road and the image of their house with its roof smashed and the remains of the building in the garden was seen around the world, both of them would tire of repeating to reporters what had happened. This plane is making a lot of noise, Alicja told her husband. The noise grew louder. Then they heard an explosion. They didn't know what it was."
The village of Wyryki sits a few kilometers from the Belarus border and close to Ukraine, in the historically violent bloodlands of eastern Europe. Since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Polish and allied jets have frequently patrolled the skies near the frontier. On a morning after Russian drones had been intercepted, an aircraft flew unusually close over a three-story house, producing loud noise followed by an explosion that smashed the roof and scattered debris into the garden. Retirees Alicja and Tomasz Wesolowski survived and described shock as law enforcement sealed the road and rescue scenes unfolded.
Read at english.elpais.com
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