Anatomy of an airstrike
At least 14 people are now known to have died in a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Poltava on Saturday morning
It’s now known that a Russian airstrike on the central Ukrainian city of Poltava on Saturday morning killed 14 people, including two children, according to the Ukrainian Emergency Situations Ministry. A further 17 people were injured in the missile strike, which targeted a five-storey residential building, and rescue workers have so far managed to free 22 people from under the rubble, though their efforts are ongoing.
The shock wave from the impact caused windows in some 18 high-rise buildings to shatter, with local residents left to clear up the mess and then cover the empty window frames with tarpaulin in an attempt not to freeze.
“My daughter called and said that the glass in the windows had shattered and the shards had fallen into the cots where her children were sleeping below. We went to clean everything up and secure the windows as there’s no heating at present — it was switched off alongside the power supply after the attack.”
“We live near here too and were thrown into the air by the shockwave. The explosion was very strong’, Poltava resident Yelena, whose daughter and grandchildren live near the impact site, told journalists.
Poltava resident Asya Brel told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne that her leg had been cut by falling shards of glass from the broken window panes in her flat, though the wound was already stitched up in hospital: “The windows in the kitchen flew out, the fridge was blown right into the corridor. The children were with their grandmother in the other room, we are all alive.”
“The first clap was, as I understood it, the Shahed drone being shot down. It was heard once, twice, three times, and then after about 15 minutes there was a very strong explosion, and everyone ran out into the street,” local resident Vladimir Gusanov said.
A Gazeta.ua correspondent spoke to a man at the scene of the attack who was looking for his wife, who hadn’t been seen since the attack, though she had been at home in their flat on the fifth floor of the building. “I was on the night shift. I got a call and was told that our house had been struck. I came here and this is what I saw. My wife was home alone ... Now neither she nor the flat are anywhere to be seen.”
“For about 20 seconds I was totally frozen in horror. There was a lot of smoke, and people were screaming in the street. It was so terrifying that no horror film could do it justice.”
