Liudmyla Kapatsii, 75, and her daughter lingered in their apartment for a couple of extra minutes, doubting whether to go to the shelter after the air raid alarm woke them up around 1 a.m. on April 24, warning of a potential Russian missile attack.
Though they were tired of near-everyday shelter runs, Kapatsii’s daughter insisted they should go. As they opened the door, everything around them exploded.
"You couldn't see anything. The window frames and glass from the corridor flew right into our door," Kapatsii told the Kyiv Independent later in the morning after the attack, sitting on a swing in a playground in front of her half-destroyed apartment building.
The debris from the explosion blocked their exit, trapping the family inside. Kapatsii had no way of knowing if her son-in-law was safe, as he was in another room at the time.
"We just hugged each other with my daughter and screamed: ‘Lord, save us. We don't need anything else, just save us'," Kapatsii said.
Overnight on April 24, Russia launched a mass missile attack on Ukraine, sending a combined 215 missiles and drones at the country. Many of the missiles and drones targeted Kyiv, where the attack killed 12 people, including two children from the same family. At least ninety more people were wounded as the strike damaged dozens of apartment buildings, a school, and a kindergarten.
During the attack, a Russian missile hit Kapatsii’s two-story residential building in Kyiv’s quiet Solomianskyi District — an area filled with blooming lilacs signaling the arrival of springtime in Ukraine.
The day before the missile strikes, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was the main obstacle to peace in Ukraine amid negotiations to end Russia’s more than three-year full-scale invasion.
Karpatsii says big glass shards and pieces of concrete littered her building’s corridor, which narrowly missed them because of their delay in deciding to seek shelter. First responders managed to get through their apartment door about 20 minutes after the explosions.
"We went outside, and I looked around, and there was no home there," Karpatsii said, referring to the building hit by the missile.
"There were people screaming all over the yard; it was terrible. An old lady I knew came running from the second floor. (People) were running around the building, screaming."
Similar to Karpatsii, Maria Rumiantseva, 40, was stuck in her wrecked apartment with her son, wheelchair-bound mother, and two dogs after debris blocked them from getting out.
"It's a nightmare, really. Our neighbor died in the building. I don't have an apartment anymore," Rumiantseva told the Kyiv Independent.
"I understand that there was an agreement (with Russia and the U.S.) not to touch us during Easter. Well, why are you touching us now, after Easter?" she said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 24-hour Easter ceasefire that the Ukrainian government says was violated by Russian troops over 3,000 times.
"A father and a child are left alone, a mother has died. These negotiations, I don't know, there is no point in negotiating here. With whom?" Rumiantseva added. "(Putin) won’t leave us alone."
Facing Rumiantseva’s balcony, Oleksandr Yefymchuk, 44, was checking the sky for any signs of an incoming attack from his second-floor balcony when the missile hit the building behind him.
It was his family’s second near-death experience in the war, Yefymchuk said.
"The first one was in Peremoha, when (the Russians) were killing people. It must mean something (that we escaped death twice)," Yefymchuk said, referring to Russia’s occupation of the Peremoha village in Kyiv Oblast in 2022.
After Peremoha was liberated, a torture chamber with human remains was found in the village. Dozens of people were killed or went missing in Peremoha during Russia's month-long invasion.
When the missile hit, Yefymchuk’s wife was getting ready to go to the shelter with their 17-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter. They didn’t manage to make it on time before the explosions began. Instead, all three of them, together with their two dogs, managed to huddle together in a small, one-square-meter space in the corridor behind a sturdy mirrored wardrobe.
"The mirror is made in Germany. It’s the only thing left intact," Yefymchuk told the Kyiv Independent, sliding the door of the closet open and pulling back the coats on their hangers.
The wardrobe, its backboard and the wall behind it missing, had turned into a portal to the neighboring apartment, whose outside wall had completely collapsed, leaving the destroyed building and rescue efforts in full view.
"My friend lived in the building behind mine, and friends of my children. What were they hit for?" Yefymchuk asked, his face crumpling in sorrow.
"We, as citizens, need a safe place for our children all over Ukraine. Donetsk, Luhansk, Sumy, Odesa oblasts. It is very important for us," Yefymchuk said, referring to regions of Ukraine where the fighting has been the most intense or that have witnessed mass attacks on civilian centers.
"I'm just asking our president, I'm asking our guys (in the army) – we only need victory. Nothing else will save us. We are already beginning to realize this in Kyiv," he added.
At the playground where volunteers erected several tents to provide urgent aid, Polina Levytska, 30, stood in line to collect thick plastic film to cover her windows. A resident of one of the damaged buildings, the attack left her with several bloodied cuts on her face and legs.
Asked by Kyiv Independent reporters about Trump's peace proposal, she couldn’t resist irony.
"It's a great proposal, very reasonable. And it will work 100%. We are all convinced," Levytska said, nodding to the scene of destruction and people around.
"Trump has his own agenda, which is absolutely bulletproof. He likes Putin. He doesn't like Ukraine," she added.
"I've been following the news myself, but when you go through this on your own, you understand everyone," Levytska said as she recounted her and her mother’s escape.
"I understand all the border towns. We have always thought about them, and about the occupied areas, but when you experience it yourself, it's just…" Levytska said, trailing off. "These are our people (in occupied territories). How can we give our people to these monsters?"
"Trump has his own agenda, which is absolutely bulletproof. He likes Putin. He doesn't like Ukraine."
"I would like to tell Trump that... I'm sorry, but there is no way to deal with Russians, except with weapons," Levytska said.
Into the late afternoon, dozens of first responders continued to go through the debris by hand and with heavy machinery. Red-and-white tape enclosed the site from both onlookers and residents who were waiting to return to their destroyed apartments.
A first responder was hugging a big tabby cat as a woman in a pink nightgown asked him whether he had seen two white cats. “Only the grey one,” the man replied.
A middle-aged man in dusty black clothes shouted a request to one of the first responders clearing the upper floors not to throw out a stroller through a hole in the wall left by a missing window.
About twenty teenagers stood in groups close to the tape throughout the day, looking out for anyone first responders might pull out from the wreckage. Several girls were hugging each other or quietly crying alone.
Next to them, a purple stuffed toy and a bouquet of yellow flowers on the ground signified the first makeshift memorial for those killed in the attack.
By early evening, the State Emergency Service confirmed it had found another body – that of a 17-year-old boy who was killed in the attack.
"He was my best friend. Yesterday he took my dog for a walk. And now he's just gone. It's hard to believe," one of the boy's friends, 17-year-old Viktoria, told UNICEF after his body was found.
"There is nothing to run from anymore. We just need to believe in our victory. And we do believe," Yefymchuk said outside his wrecked home.
Note from the author:
Hi, this is Natalia Yermak, I reported this story for you. It's always heartbreaking to meet and talk to people that have just survived the worst experience of their lives, but it feels worse to see attacks like this one happen amid the "peace talks."
Please consider supporting the Kyiv Independent so that we can continue covering such on-the-ground stories. Thank you.
Martin Fornusek
