At least 22 people, including five children, were killed in a strike on a residential building in Priluki, Chernihiv region, on the night of Wednesday. Among the dead, three children were only one year old. The attack on Priluki was part of a broader barrage of strikes on Ukrainian cities.
A resident of Priluki, 41-year-old Olga, who wished to remain anonymous, said her family was asleep at the time of the attack. The children were in one room, she was in another, and her husband was in the living room. After the first explosion, they all ran to the hallway and hid between two walls. A second explosion followed, and then a third a few minutes later.
Olga said that the adjacent building was partially destroyed, and the shockwave shattered all the windows facing the courtyard. Her husband was in the living room when the balcony doors were blown towards him, but he was not seriously injured. Olga has a seven-year-old son.
Volodymyr Ivashchenko, 75, woke up around 6am. He had heard a humming sound before the explosions, and then described several consecutive explosions and a deafening noise. Tetiana Pinchuk, 69, who has lived in the area since 1974, took her dog out early in the morning and returned home to rest. All the windows in her flat were shattered, and the internal doors were damaged. She remained unharmed, but her dog was terrified hours later. Pinchuk said this was not the first time her part of Priluki had been attacked, but no strike had been like this one.
A 50-year-old was preparing for work at 6:30 when she heard the explosions. She immediately called her mother, who lived opposite, and then her husband in Kyiv. Pinchuk said that families had been seeking refuge in the area. Children who had been playing in the affected neighbourhood had already fled the war once before. Opposite is the Children and Youth Creative Centre, a municipal institution where generations have learned to sing, dance, and prepare for school.
