‘My head was bleeding’: a grandmother who survived Russian attack in Dnipro says she is ‘very lucky’

The already catastrophic human toll is likely to rise further. Four days after the attack that hit an apartment building located at 118 Victory Quay in Dnipro, which has already killed 40 people, rescue operations continue, desperate as the chances of finding survivors dwindle.

“The rescue operation, the demolition of the rubble, will not end until the bodies of all the dead are found,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, said as 25 people remained missing.

“They have no right to do that”

Survivors and wounded are treated in the city’s hospitals. According to everyone’s testimony, the explosion was extremely violent. “I was sitting in the kitchen when I felt a huge shock. I think I lost consciousness because when I opened my eyes there was an abyss in front of me. It was scary,” Lyudmila, an elderly survivor, recalls with BFMTV.

“My legs were trapped under a concrete block, my head was bleeding a lot. I was able to grab a towel which I shook off saying ‘help, help’. It took them three hours to come to save me, I am very, very lucky, my son told me ‘mom, you really are a miracle,'” she recalls again.

In the corridors of the hospital establishment, the relatives of the wounded oscillate between sadness and anger. “We are civilians, it is not like on a battlefield. They have no right to do that”, laments Tetyana.

“I would so much like those who gave the order and pulled the trigger to come see with their own eyes what a terrible tragedy they are responsible for,” he denounces, while the Ukrainian authorities have already revealed six names of Russian officers who allegedly took part in this strike. .

The Kremlin denies

For its part, the Kremlin took two days to react to the strike, and it denied it. “Russian armed forces are not shelling residential buildings or civilian infrastructure, they are shelling military targets,” said Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Russian presidency.

The Swedish presidency of the European Union has denounced “a Russian war crime”. A new example of “suspicion of violations of the law of war,” reacted the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres.