Following the brutal Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital on Friday morning, the Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko is urging residents to leave the city. Kyiv has around four million residents and has had multiple attacks since the war started on 24 February 2022. There has been a grim warning that over the coming days a there could be a "potentially significant air attack that may occur at any time." Russia attacked the capital with 36 missiles and 242 drones leaving almost 6,000 residential buildings with no power or heating at a time when temperatures have fallen below -10C.
Nearly four decades later, his widow, Natalia Khodemchuk, died last Saturday at the age of 73 in a Kyiv hospital: the night before, a Russian drone strike had hit her apartment while she slept. The resulting fire has left a black stain on the seventh floor of the building, around what used to be Khodemchuk's apartment. It's a 20-storey block, a massive structure on the outskirts of Kyiv.
It was not clear whether Sudokov's family were hurt in the attack. "This is what my house looks like after tonight. Arrival of the shaheed [sic]. The wife, child and mother were at home at the time," Sudakov said in the accompanying post. A wave of 805 drones and 13 missiles were sent by Russia overnight, according to Ukraine's air force.
At a five-storey residential apartment block in the eastern Darnytskyi block of the city, residents said they had heard Russian bombing in the distance. It was a familiar sound, and many had gathered away from the windows in central corridors that extended along the block only for disaster to strike. We didn't understand what had happened, says Oleksandr Yastremskyi, who had taken refuge in a corridor with his wife, Tetiana, and their son Denys. It's like something had landed into our house.
For Anastasiia, war is an everyday part of life. The 17-year-old lives in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, where captured Russian tanks line the city's historic St. Michael's square, a daily minute of silence pays tribute to the war dead, and sirens pierce the air when a Russian missile attack is imminent. "The war has influenced us a lot. It changes our pace of life, the conditions in which we work," Anastasiia explains about the conflict now stretching into its third year.
Kyiv was the main target, with at least 23 people injured and damage reported across several residential areas. Fires and destruction were confirmed in five of the capital's ten districts, and railway infrastructure was also hit.
