The terror does not subside. Ukraine is mourning, once again, the civilian victims of the new, massive raids on the country and, in particular, on the city of Kyiv by Russian forces. The most violent and massive attack launched by Moscow since the start of the full-scale war in 2022, lasted for a good 30 hours, between Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th, with a wave of missiles and drones that fell mainly on the capital, hitting homes and civilian infrastructure.
In the Darnytsia neighborhood, on the east bank of the Dnipro River, a nine-story apartment building collapsed. Search and rescue operations in the rubble ended this morning. The latest toll is 24 people dead, among them a 13-year-old boy, a 16-year-old and another 18-year-old. Forty-eight people, including two children, were injured. Today a day of mourning was declared in Kyiv to remember the victims.
After the end of the truce from 9 to 11 May, the Russian offensive resumed with even more strength and intensity, attacking indiscriminately on residential neighborhoods, on buildings inhabited by civilians, families, ordinary people, in Kyiv and in many other cities of the country, such as Kremenchuk, Sumy, Odessa, Kharkiv.
A makeshift memorial in Kyiv near the site of the Russian attack that destroyed a residential building leaving 24 people dead.
(REUTERS)
«These are very hard days», she comments, deeply shaken, Svitlana TereshchenkoUkrainian entrepreneur who lives in Milan, activist and promoter of Ukrainian culture through the Boristene association, which just yesterday concluded the third edition of the “Ukraine is Ukraine” festival in Milan.
Svitlana shows a photo of her sister’s car, who lives in Kharkiv, on her phone. in the East, about 40 kilometers from the border with Russia, a continuous target of attacks since the beginning of the war. «Yesterday morning», she says, «my sister was going to pick up her son from school, in the center, not in a school building but inside a subway station, because in Kharkiv, due to the war, children still attend lessons in classrooms underground. While he was in the car, shrapnel from a drone pierced his car above the fuel tank. Just two centimeters to the left, his car would have exploded, and my sister…. I’m terrified. When he sent me the photo I had a panic attack.” And he adds: “The world cares about Putin’s May 9th parade, but not enough about civilians in Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Zelensky said the Kh-101 missile that hit the apartment block in Kyiv had been manufactured in the second quarter of this year, showing that Moscow continues to circumvent international sanctions: «We are preparing steps that can intensify our joint response: sanctions must be more severe for Russia,” he declared on Telegram, launching an appeal to Western allies. Zelensky also said he had instructed “the Ukrainian Defense Forces and special services to propose possible formats for our response to this Russian attack.”
Last night, Ukrainian forces launched a large-scale drone attack to hit military targets and energy infrastructure in several regions of Russia. A day of mourning was declared in Kyiv today, to remember the victims of the latest attacks.
The only glimmer of light comes from a new maxi-exchange of prisoners of war between Russia and Ukraine, one of the rare communication channels left open between the two countries, a field in which cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv still continues with good progress, while the work of diplomacy to reach a peace negotiation remains in limbo. On each side, 205 prisoners were released. Most of the released Ukrainians – aged between 21 and 62 – had been in captivity for around four years. The return of prisoners to their families, underlines on social media Dmytro Lubinets, commissioner for human rights of the Ukrainian Parliament, it happened on International Family Day, on May 15 (established by the United Nations General Assembly). The last exchange – of prisoners of war and some civilians – was on April 24th.
