Kherson: Natalia Kristenko’s body wrapped in a blanket lay at the door of her apartment building for hours throughout the night. City workers were at first overwhelmed to retrieve it as they responded to a deadly barrage of attacks that shook ukraineSouthern city of Kherson. The 62-year-old woman had come out of the house with her husband after having tea on Thursday evening when the building collapsed. Kristenko was killed instantly from head injuries. Her husband died of internal bleeding hours later in hospital.
“The Russians took my two most precious people,” said her 38-year-old daughter, Lilia Kristenko, clutching her cat inside her coat as she watched in horror on Friday as responders finally took her mother to the morgue. Arrived to pick up.
“They lived so well, they lived differently,” he told The Associated Press. “But they died in a day.”
A barrage of missiles hit Kherson for the second day on Friday in a marked escalation of attacks since Russia pulled out of the city two weeks ago after an eight-month occupation. This comes at a time when Russia has started bombing Ukraine’s power grid and other vital civilian infrastructure in a bid to crack down on Kyiv.
Officials estimate that about 50 percent of Ukraine’s energy facilities have been damaged in the recent attacks. The Ukrainian governor of Kherson, Yaroslav Yanushevich, said on Friday that 10 civilians were killed and 54 others wounded in Russian shelling attacks the previous day, with two neighborhoods in the city of Kherson coming “under massive artillery fire”. Troops in the area warned that Kherson would face intensified attacks as Russian forces dug in across the Dnieper River.
Many people were injured in the attacks on residential and commercial buildings, some were set on fire, ash was blown into the air and broken glass was scattered in the streets. The attacks devastated some residential areas that had not previously been affected by the war, which has just entered its tenth month.
After Kristenko’s parents were hurt, she tried to call an ambulance, but there was no phone network, she said. Her 66-year-old father was clutching at his abdominal wound and screaming “It hurts so much I’m dying”, she said. He was eventually taken to hospital by ambulance but died during surgery.
On Friday morning, people examined what was left of their destroyed homes and shops. Containers of food lay on the floor of a broken meat shop, while customers stood across the street at a coffee shop where residents said four people had died the night before.
“I don’t even know what to say, it was unexpected,” said Diana Samsonova, who worked at the coffee shop.
Later in the day, a woman was killed, possibly by a rocket that hit a grass patch nearby. His motionless body was lying on the side of the road. Violence is on the rise which has become a dire humanitarian crisis. As the Russians began to retreat, they destroyed major infrastructure, leaving people with little water and electricity.
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People have become so desperate that they are finding some salvation amidst the rubble. Outside a badly damaged apartment building, residents filled buckets with water that had accumulated on the ground. Morgue workers used puddles to clean their bloody hands.
Valery Parkhomenko had just parked his car and walked into a coffee shop when a rocket destroyed his vehicle.
“We were all crouching on the floor inside,” he said, showing the ashes on his hands. “I feel terrible, my car is destroyed, I need this car to feed my family,” he said.
Residents outside the shelled apartment buildings picked up debris and searched for relatives, while paramedics tended to the injured.
“I think it’s very bad and I think all countries need to do something about it because it’s not normal,” said Ivan Mashkarnets, who lives at home with his mother in his early 20s. was when the apartment block next to it was hit.
“There is no army, no soldiers. Only people are living here and they are (still) firing.”
The population of Kherson has declined from pre-war levels of around 300,000 to around 80,000. The government has said it will help people evacuate if they want to, but many say they have nowhere to go.
“There’s no work (elsewhere), there’s no work here,” said Ihor Novak as he stood on the street checking the aftermath of the shelling. “For now, the Ukrainian army is here and with them we hope it will be safe.”