In Kyiv, one man’s dash to try to save neighbours after Russian strike
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Ukrainian rescuers working at a residential building hit during a Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv that killed at least 18 people.
PHOTO: AFP
- Kyiv was attacked by Russian drones and missiles on Aug 28, resulting in injuries and trapped civilians.
- Vladislav Kalashnikov, 19, despite his damaged apartment, rescued neighbours, including a child under debris.
- Kalashnikov is staying in Ukraine to study law, despite frequent attacks and opportunities to leave, saying "I see my future here."
AI generated
KYIV – A wounded woman pinned down by concrete. A man whose leg was badly broken. A child trapped under debris.
The scenes after an Aug 28 Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv were tragically familiar: residents picking through debris while awaiting rescuers, often amid the moans and cries of their neighbours.
Among those trying to help was 19-year-old Vladislav Kalashnikov. Despite his own apartment being torn apart in the attack, he rushed to help his neighbours in a nearby building.
“I didn’t get scared – I went to help right away,” he told Reuters outside the partly wrecked building on Kyiv’s eastern outskirts, where all but one of at least 18 people killed in strikes across the city had died.
Footage captured by the aspiring lawyer on his cellphone in the chaotic aftermath showed a fiery hellscape of twisted metal, gaping brick walls and shattered glass.
After ensuring his family was safe, Mr Kalashnikov rushed to survey the scene, where he found a man immobilised by a broken leg.
“He was screaming for help,” he said. “There was also a child crying for help. We first helped the child, she was under debris.”
Mr Kalashnikov, who appeared calm, also recalled trying, with others, to pull a woman with a gaping head wound out from under a concrete block.
Explosions roared in the background as they worked, his footage showed.
“We couldn’t lift the block,” he said, pausing and casting his eyes downward. It was not immediately clear whether the woman had survived.
As he spoke, rescue workers carried away bodies in black bags.
Mr Kalashnikov, like many Ukrainians, said he has grown used to the increasingly frequent strikes that Russia, which denies deliberately targeting civilians, has unleashed on Kyiv and other cities.
Yet despite his close brush with violence, he said he has no intention of leaving Ukraine for a safer country.
Earlier this week, the government lifted a ban on men aged 18 to 22 travelling abroad.
“I want to study further,” he said. “I see my future here.” REUTERS
