Russian Missile Strike Turns Holiday Into Day of Horror

From a hospital bed, her legs still covered in blood, Diana Kazakova described the horror of a Russian missile hitting the heart of Chernihiv city in northern Ukraine on Saturday. 

She was inside a fabric store when the strike happened around 11:30 a.m. local time, moments after warning sirens sounded across the city. 

“The window completely fell on me, and I fell,” she told AFP from the hospital where she is being treated for a concussion and leg injuries. “Then I woke up later and was completely stunned and shocked.” 

In the street outside, “people were crying, shouting … it was scary,” she said. 

The strike came during the Orthodox holiday of the Transfiguration of the Lord, with some attending morning church services in the city, which sits about 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of the capital, Kyiv. 

The roof of Chernihiv’s theater in the central square was badly damaged by the strike, with windows blown out, although the exterior walls of the building were still standing. 

The historic city center is a candidate for nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage List, according to Ukraine’s culture ministry. 

The powerful blast shattered all the windows of restaurants, cafes, shops and apartments in two surrounding streets.  

AFP saw a vehicle that had been thrown four meters through the air against the wall of a restaurant. 

Cafe manager Viktoria Zakharchenko, 29, said she had just arrived at work, near the fabric shop, when the missile hit. 

“When I came out, it was terrible. I didn’t know if the people who were lying on the ground were still alive or already dead,” she told AFP. 

The strike killed at least seven people and wounded more than 100. 

AFP saw a man nearby in military uniform inspecting a pile of scrap metal and colored wires, believed to be parts of the missile. 

Nearby, 24-year-old restaurant worker, Lioudmila, who only wanted to give her first name, was helping to remove debris. 

She said she was 200 meters from the restaurant when she heard a very loud whistle and an explosion. 

“I fell to the ground,” she told AFP. 

There were “screams, there were a lot of dead and wounded, and ambulances,” she said, her hands still shaking with shock. 

The streets around were covered with debris, glass and felled trees. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the missile had turned “an ordinary Saturday … into a day of pain and loss.” 
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