‘Everything black’: Russian strikes kill seven in Ukraine’s Kherson, Zaporizhzhia
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A woman walking near to her apartment building - damaged by a Russian air strike - in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, on Oct 1.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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KHERSON, Ukraine - When Russian artillery pounded a market in southern Ukraine on Oct 1, a safe was blown from the windowsill of the pharmacy where Anya works, hitting her in the head.
She believes it was a stroke of luck.
“The safe hit me and saved me at the same time, because on the other side of the safe there were a lot of holes,” she told AFP, suggesting the metal box had shielded her from other projectiles that had been blasted towards her.
Six people were killed by the Russian strike, which hit a market in the city of Kherson around 9am (2pm in Singapore), according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
In southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia, one person was killed and six wounded after Russia hit residential buildings and infrastructure with aerial bombs, said regional governor Ivan Fedorov.
The attack on Kherson was the latest by Russia on a city that has borne the brunt of Moscow’s war for more than two and a half years.
Captured in the first weeks of the invasion in early 2022, residents that stayed there spent more than eight months living under Russian occupation.
In September 2022, Moscow claimed to have annexed the entire Kherson region, despite not having full control over it.
Facing military setbacks and stretched resources, it then withdrew its forces from Kherson city, the regional capital, in November 2022, retreating across the Dnipro river.
The waterway now serves as a de facto front line snaking through southern Ukraine - one that puts Kherson well within reach of Russian artillery stationed on the opposite bank.
Deadly strikes are frequent and locals live on edge.
‘Our people’
“Everything happened very quickly. We didn’t understand anything. We only heard an explosion. It went dark, there was dust and something hit me on the head,” said Anya, recalling the blast.
She had stuck a plaster to her forehead where the safe had struck her.
When an AFP video journalist arrived at the market after the strike, debris and broken glass were strewn across the ground and pools of blood were congealing under the autumn sun.
Crates of fruit and vegetables lay on the pavement, abandoned as their sellers fled for cover.
“All those people who suffered, they worked here,” Anya told AFP.
“They were our clients, people we knew.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine abandon the entire Kherson region - as well as parts of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk that Ukraine still controls - as a precondition to peace talks
Kherson local Gennady was in a hardware kiosk when the artillery hit.
“I didn’t even notice I’d fallen to the floor,” he told AFP.
“Everything here was black. And what was outside - I was afraid to go out.” AFP, REUTERS
