KYIV — Ripe cherries and apricots fill the stalls of fruit vendors, while people bustle about on a scorching July Friday.
Yet just a five-minute walk from the stand, the scene shifts dramatically: a gaping hole mars the five-story residential building where the stairwell once stood. Rescuers tirelessly sift through the rubble, and a fragment of a Russian drone lies abandoned in the middle of the road.
Kyiv, a refuge for countless Ukrainians escaping the war in the east and south, grows more perilous each day as Russia escalates its drone and missile attacks on the city. Russia has recently been unleashing nearly 500 drones each night, both decoys and explosive-laden.
Overnight on July 4, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in the hope of bringing the war to an end, Russia launched 270 Russian drones and ballistic missiles at the Ukrainian capital, injuring at least 24 people and killing one.
The Russian strike damaged residential buildings, businesses, a school, a medical facility, railway lines, and other civilian infrastructure in multiple districts.
Kyiv, a refuge for countless Ukrainians escaping the war in the east and south, grows more perilous each day as Russia escalates its drone and missile attacks on the city. Russia has recently been unleashing nearly 500 drones each night, both decoys and explosive-laden.
"The explosions I heard here were unlike anything I heard in Pokrovsk. It's just beyond words," Lillia Kuzmenko, who left the embattled Donetsk Oblast with her husband and moved to the capital a month ago, told the Kyiv Independent.
Given the intensifying strikes, Kuzmenko, who is eight months pregnant, said she does not want to leave Ukraine.
As the Russian attacks intensified over the past months, Nazgaidze’s family began heading to the shelter whenever the air raid alarm sounded. He said this time it saved their lives.
"The explosion was deafening. It was very scary that the building where the shelter was located would collapse. People were screaming loudly. I thought someone had died," Nazgaidze said.
The resident recalled this night when the drones relentlessly attacked the city like never before, and with every passing week, the fear and dread only deepened. Despite this, Nazgaidze does not want to leave Ukraine.
"This is a war between good and evil. Yes, I am Georgian, but I am with you. And I will always be with you because I love this country, and I love these people," he said.
Note from the author:
Hello, this is Kateryna Hodunova, the author of this story. Like all the residents of Kyiv mentioned in the story, I spent the night sleepless, listening to the terrifying sounds of ballistic missiles being intercepted and drones swarming toward the capital. Each attack is more than just the number of the injured, the killed, or the damage done. It is a personal tragedy for every family affected, and I feel that pain.
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