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Dmytro ran into the room where his two children were sleeping, after a Russian missile thundered into an apartment building in Uman, Ukraine, before dawn on Friday. He forced himself to open the door and stared into oblivion.
“There is no room behind the door. Only clouds of fire and smoke,” he said. At the end of the day, he and his wife, Inna, found no trace of Kyrylo, 17, or Sophia, 11.
Russia on Friday launched airstrikes that spanned more than a month against Ukrainian civilian targets, killing at least 25 people, officials said – the deadliest since January. At least 20 people were killed in one of the apartment blocks in Uman, their front faces were shaved by a missile blast.
The attack marked a return to the pattern Russia adopted last year after its invasion failed to defeat Ukraine militarily, launching large-scale missiles, rockets and drones on towns and cities far from the battlefield in the east and south.
It is a campaign intended to destroy civilian infrastructure, and also appears to terrorize and demoralize the population, with the deadly reminder that no corner of the country is beyond Russia.
On Friday, a Russian bomber in the Caspian Sea fired 23 cruise missiles that struck just after 4 a.m., and Ukrainian forces shot dead 21 people, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander of Ukraine’s military forces, said in a statement.
The Ministry of Defense of the Kremlin said in a statement that it had used “high-precision, long-range” missiles against places where Ukrainian reservists had gathered, without specifying the location or providing evidence of what was hit. “The objective of the attack has been reached,” he said.
The barrage underscored the importance of Ukraine’s air defenses, which are highly effective but imperfect. Even a few missiles that penetrate can cause massive damage. In a trove of Pentagon documents related to the war in Ukraine that have been leaked online, US intelligence agents estimate that without the deployment of Western ammunition, Ukraine’s entire air defense network, weakened by repeated Russian attacks, could collapse.
Russia also appears to be re-adjusting its tactics as it uses its dwindling supply of precision missiles to evade detection. Ukraine’s military’s southern command said that in the latest attack, Moscow forces had made several changes to the missile’s trajectory and launch location to speed up Ukraine’s ability to detect it.
Friday’s attack killed 23 people in Uman, about 200 miles from the front line, and two others in Dnipro, a young woman and a 2-year-old child, officials said. There was also an explosion in Kyiv, the capital, apparently from an air defense battery destroying a missile on the plane.
In Uman, Inna and Dmytro, who asked that their names not be used for security reasons, and their 6-year-old son were not injured. But the grieving parents could not fathom that their other two children would be lost forever.
Inna stood outside, where the charred cars were in the parking lot, looking at the ruins that had become the house and repeated to the wind that the explosion had taken Sophia and Kyrylo, alive.
“I didn’t know what to do,” said Dmytro, recounting his unimaginable first moment. “Should I look for my older children or help my wife and children out of the house? Because I couldn’t see my older children, I ran out.
Psychologists on the scene and neighbors offered words of comfort.
In addition to those who died on Friday, dozens of injured and an unknown number are unknown. More than 100 people were listed as living in 46 units of the damaged apartment building in Uman, officials said, but it was unclear how many were still at home.
As firefighters doused the flames from the wreckage, rescuers found bodies and survivors throughout the day and evening. Convoys of dump trucks arrived one after another to haul away the debris so workers could dig their way into the basement, where they hoped to find more survivors.
Dymytro Vynohradov, 22, a rescue worker, said he saw a 10-year-old boy who died in his pajamas. “And I remember a little girl, with blonde hair, who looked like she could sleep,” he said. “He had no visible injuries, but he was dead.”
He said he found two elderly women and a man, disoriented and trapped behind a fallen concrete ceiling on the seventh floor. “First, we need to calm down,” he said. “Then we helped him out of the balcony and down the long ladder from the fire truck.”
He ran back to help his friend pull the rest of the family to safety – an 8-year-old girl, a 4-year-old boy, parents and grandmother.
Armed with a variety of new weapons from its Western backers, Ukraine is expected to start a major counteroffensive soon to recapture the territory held by Russia since the attack 14 months ago.
A new Kremlin policy says Ukrainians living in occupied territories can be uprooted from their homes and relocated for refusing Russian passports or protesting Russia’s annexation – the latest sign of its commitment to Russify the region and punish dissent. A decree signed on Thursday by President Vladimir V. Putin – which confirms that Ukraine is only a part of Russia, not a real country – states that citizens who do not pledge allegiance to Russia are now considered foreigners, their legal residency will expire in July 2024, and may be deported.
Ukrainian officials condemned both the decree and the missile attack as evidence of Mr Putin’s contempt for human rights and his determination to clear Ukraine, and they called for more advanced Western weapons to deter the attack.
Bridget A. Brink, US ambassador to Kyiv, wrote on Twitter, “Russia still hasn’t realized that its brutality only strengthens Ukraine’s resolve and deepens our commitment.” Charles Michel, president of the European Council – the group of heads of government of the European Union – tweeted that “Military, humanitarian and political support will continue as needed.”
Uman attracts many visitors every year to the elegantly landscaped Sofiyivka Park, and to the burial site of Nachman of Breslov, the founder of Breslov’s Hasidic Jewish sect.
The Russians attacked the city several times early in the war, likely because of its nearby airfield, but since then it has rarely been a target.
Still, people living here have often seen missiles flying overhead, on the way to Kyiv. For more than a year, a woman in Uman named Inna – not the same Inna whose two children disappeared – and her sister-in-law, Halyna, in Kyiv have been texting each other when they heard air raid alarms, a kind of family. early warning system.
On Friday morning, they ordered again. “It’s quiet now. And how are you?” wrote Inna. Then the phone is offline.
“I have hope that he is still alive; maybe he went to the basement,” said Halyna. He noted that people were found alive in the rubble for up to three days after a devastating Russian missile attack on Dnipro in January.
“The Russians don’t care what they hit, how many people they kill,” Halyna said. “Ukraine is crying out for help.”
“I cried all over,” she added, before breaking down again.
Victoria Kim, Anna Lukinova and Anatoly Kurmanaev contribute reports.
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