Missile strike against TV tower, hail of bullets in churchyard

The rocket attack on the Kiev TV tower on March 2 affected both the TV tower itself and nearby buildings. Five people walking on the street at the same time were killed. Their lifeless bodies were delivered to the morgue the next morning at the end of the curfew. Photo: Dmitri Kotjuh

A missile strike in Babyn Yar a few kilometers away from central Kyiv caused some damage to the city TV transmission tower and a couple of nearby buildings. Five people were killed.

One of the missiles exploded at a shop across the street where the victims were walking before the blast. Their partially burned bodies were still lying and waiting for removal yesterday morning.

According to the locals, this was yet another proof that that Russian army cares nothing of the civilians and is breaking its every promise – as the war began, the invaders pledged to shoot only at strategic and military targets, yet the sights in combat areas speak otherwise.

Saboteurs ran to the church

A soup kitchen was operating yesterday in the yard of a Russian Orthodox church of the Moscow patriarchy some distance away from the TV tower in Shevchenko district, distributing food to the needy. Local residents were handed a plate with porridge and a slice of bread; hot tea was provided to wash it down.

The parish feeds approximately a hundred people every day plus the forty residents of an apartment block who have found a safe haven in the church cellar. Approximately half of them are children and some still infants.

According to Father Vitaly, the priest of the church, they have been feeding people for three months already. They are constantly stocking up additional food and receive help from the local entrepreneurs and territorial defense volunteers. The helpers deliver all the necessary goods with their own cars. “It happened so that we managed to stock up a month’s rations for one hundred people basically a couple of days before all this began,” Father Vitaly said. The church has a sufficient stock of flour and the eager helpers bake their own bread.

The people of this district have seen and directly experienced the horrors of war for two days running. Local territorial defense caught a Russian sabotage group of some twenty men in the very same place before the missile strike as they attempted to force their way into the city center.

There was no mercy for any of the enemy soldiers and the entire unit was destroyed in firefight. The territorial defense volunteers caught the last resisting enemies a couple of hundred meters away from the yard of the church where they had tried to hide behind the fence.

The people hiding in the cellar of the shrine at the same time did not suffer, but bullet strikes could be later seen in the church windows and its timber walls.

The saboteurs had tried to confuse the defenders by using a truck in the Ukrainian army camouflage and a civilian bus. Both vehicles were shot full of holes.

The clergyman offering shelter to civilians in fear of bombing and shooting told us that during the construction of the church he had had a disagreement with his acquaintance, a Ukrainian military engineer who had designed the building. “He had the walls of all the cellar rooms built exactly according to bomb shelter specifications. It took tons and tons of concrete,” Father Vitaly recalled. “We were doubtful at first whether it would make sense to cast that much concrete, but now we are grateful to him.”

The approximately twenty children wolfing down porridge and fried fish yesterday have had to practice nearly every day how to take cover, Father Vitaly said.

The children are scared but take care for each other

“In the morning we pray, then we feed them and find something to do in the church territory,” Father Vitaly described the children’s daily schedule. “Since air raid sirens are sounded all the time, we have had a lot of practice of running to the cellar. The children are quite scared, of course. They cry as they hear the warning sirens and are worried. My daughter said one day that she is ten years old but the dog waiting for us at home is only three – how can he manage without us. Fortunately all the children are together in the church. We support each other and read prayers. They take very good care for each other.”

Ten-year-old Vika, who loves to read books, picked plastic letter out of a shopping bag and taught her friend, the six-year-old Serafim, who has not yet learned how to read. “We are drawing all kinds of pictures and playing here. We have boards were you can place letters, books and toys,” the girl said. “In the evening we are going to play, eat and then go to bed,” Vika counted. “Yes, and then we shall go to bed,” Serafim assured happily.