Washington and its partners are considering additional sanctions if the parties do not observe a ceasefire, with political and technical negotiations between Europe and the U.S. intensifying since last week, Reuters' source said.
The Kyiv Independent’s contributor Ignatius Ivlev-Yorke spent a day with a mobile team from the State Emergency Service in Nikopol in the south of Ukraine as they responded to relentless drone, artillery, and mortar strikes from Russian forces just across the Dnipro River. Nikopol is located across from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Enerhodar.
Peter Szijjarto's announcement came after Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) allegedly dismantled a Hungarian military intelligence network operating in Zakarpattia Oblast.
Moscow and Washington discuss the potential resumption of Russian gas supplies to Europe, among other issues related to the peaceful settlement of Russia's war in Ukraine, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov confirmed to the Russian state-run Interfax news agency.
"This is a historic decision, as weapons for Ukraine will be purchased at the expense of the proceeds from frozen Russian assets through the European Peace Fund," Denys Shmyhal said.
Oleh Sheremet, a 57-year old electrician, stands in front of his home on March 19, 2022. Six days earlier a Russian missile hit the building, destroying or damaging dozens of apartments. (Anna Myroniuk)
Six days after a Russian missile destroyed their homes, residents of one nine-story apartment building in Kyiv’s northern district Obolon are back to the site of the tragedy.
It’s a short visit as the building is falling apart and it's dangerous to stay for long.
Despite the risks, people come to see what was left of the apartments they spent their entire lives in. This is a regular residential building, one among many in Kyiv and beyond that have become the targets of Russian shells and missiles.
Miraculously survived
Oleh Sheremet, a 57-year-old electrician, can see what is left of his kitchen from the street. There is no glass or window frame anymore.
“My flat is not just damaged, it's completely destroyed,” Sheremet told the Kyiv Independent as he was visiting the site on March 19.
The remains of the kitchen of Oleh Sheremet's apartment in the northern Obolon district in Kyiv is seen from the street on March 19, 2022. Six days earlier, a Russian missile hit the building, destroying or damaging dozens of apartments. (Anna Myroniuk)
It was a rough wake-up for Sheremet at five in the morning of March 14. A Russian rocket hit the building's entryway right next to his first-floor apartment.
“I heard a loud pop and then it was something like, you know, when you lie on the seacoast and the tide gets you. The explosive wave passed through me,” Sheremet said.
“I opened my eyes and the first thought that came to me was: ‘Now it happened to me’,” he went on.
Sheremet thinks that he surviving was a miracle. A window frame, a cupboard and a printer fell on him, but he managed to get out uninjured.
“I'm very lucky. I'm alive! Not a scratch on me,” he said.
His beloved cat, Zizu, did not survive the attack.
After the attack that ruined the entryway, Sheremet helped his neighbors to get out through his ruined window. Then, he rushed to search for Zizu.
“I was walking around, calling for her,” Sheremet said. “A young guy from territorial defense came to me, saying: ‘Man, get out of here, the gas is about to explode now’.”
The rescuers had cut off the gas on time and the explosion did not follow, Sheremet said.
When the firefighters found Zizu, he said, she was “beyond saving.”
Zizu, the cat, lived with Sheremet for 16 years and was a real friend.
Family reunited
While Sheremet was grieving the death of his cat Zizu, his neighbor from the fifth floor was happy to find her cat Kindy that had disappeared after the shelling on March 14.
Ever since the attack, Larysa Lupych, 60, had been coming home looking for her three cats. On the second day, she found two of them, Cherie and Maggie.
Now, the last one, Kindy, had returned home, too.
Larysa Lupych holds Kindie, one of her three cats, in front of her house in Kyiv on March 19, 2022, six days after it was hit by a Russian rocket.
It is a relief that the family is reunited now, said Lupych, a hairdresser: “I am so glad all of our animals are with us now.”
When the rocket hit her building, the cats hid. Only her dog, Archie, came to its owner.
“I grabbed my dog and went to check how to get out,” she said. “There was smoke all around, I could not see anything.”
Lupych took a fire extinguisher and tried to contain the fire with no success.
She then tried to leave the building, but the stairs had fallen. She was trapped.
“The smoke was very acrid. It was hard to breathe," Lupych recalled.
Firefighters help people to get out of the building after the attack by a Russian missile on March 14, 2022. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine)
She and her neighbors gathered around a window in between the floors to catch some air as they were waiting for the firefighters to rescue them.
“I was almost the last one to go down the fire escape,” she recalled. “The last man who followed me, he died.”
The man was a retired university lecturer in his 70s. He did not feel well when the shelling started.
“He was lying on the concrete floor while everyone was standing,” Lupych recalled. “He told me to go down first.”
The man died during the rescue operation. He is survived by his wife, who managed to get out of the building minutes earlier.
He was the only resident killed as the result of the attack. Three people were injured and hospitalized.
Ruined lives
Both Lupych and Sheremet were among the first residents of this building. They moved here in 1977, the year it was built.
The house faces the sports field where Sheremet had been doing Nordic walking.
Lupych's apartment was dear to her because it was full of memories of her mother Anna that had passed away two years ago.
Now both Lupych and Sheremet, a hairdresser and an electrician, have no home. For the time being, they have found temporary shelter at their relatives.
Anna Myroniuk is the head of investigations at the Kyiv Independent. Anna has run investigative projects on human rights, healthcare and illicit trade. She also investigated political and corporate misconduct and alleged wrongdoings in the Ukraine army's leadership. Anna holds a Masters in Investigative Journalism from the City University of London. She is a Chevening Scholar, the European Press Prize 2023 winner, the winner of the #AllForJan Award 2023, an honoree of the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Media & Marketing list, the runner-up in the investigative reporting category of the 2022 European Press Prize, and a finalist of the 2022 Ukraine's National Investigative Journalism Award and the 2020 Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award.
