UKRAINE, KHARKIV, Jun. 15 — Over the past day, Russian forces attacked the Kholodnohirskyi, Kyivskyi, and Shevchenkivskyi districts of Kharkiv, killing five and injuring 13 people, including a one-month-old child, reported the Kharkiv regional police.
Gwara Media worked on the impact sites in the Kholodnohirskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts.
In the Kholodnohirskyi district, Russians attacked an industrial area, hitting it twice.
The first attack was around 11:30 p.m. on Jun. 14. A Russian drone attacked the building of a civilian business, causing a fire. An emergency rescue team went to the impact site to deal with the aftermath, said Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region.
At 01:30 a.m. on Jun. 15, Russian forces conducted the second attack in the same area with missiles.
The second attack killed four emergency workers and one employee of the Kharkiv City Council and injured nine people, including six rescuers, said Yevhen Vasylenko, a spokesman for Kharkiv’s State Emergency Service, to Gwara.
All injured rescuers are still in the hospital. Vasylenko said that a young woman who had just finished her training and joined the rescue team was among the injured. The explosion caused a traumatic amputation of her hand.
Later, the State Emergency Service’s press service said that there were Dmytrii Boiko, the head of the rescue unit, rescuers Danylo Tishchenko and Serhii Makovetskyi, and Vadym Zinchenko, a driver, among the killed emergency service workers.
The other killed man was Oleksii Dorozhkin, a worker of the Kharkiv City Council’s Emergency Department.
“Before that, he served as an officer in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He was one of our best employees. He was the only person on our team who knew how to operate drones for emergency rescue and search operations,” said Bohdan Hladkykh, head of the Emergency Situations Department, to Gwara.
Hladkykh said that Russian forces conducted four attacks with Iskander-M ballistic missiles. Three missiles hit a business building, and the fourth hit directly at the place where the rescue team was hiding during the air raid alert.
According to Hladkykh, the distance from the point of impact to where the rescuers were hiding was less than 30 meters (~98 feet). “Unfortunately, they had no chance to survive,” he said.
Also, on Jun. 14, a Russian drone hit the building of the Kharkiv Art Museum, injuring six people.
On the night of Jun. 15, another Russian drone hit the Shevchenkivskyi district of Kharkiv, injuring a woman.
“I’m still really scared. I can’t calm down. I barely had time to step through the doorway and stand between the walls. I saw it (Russian attack drone — ed.) come flying in. It’s the first time it’s been so close,” said Olena, a local of the area where the attack was.
Read more
- Russian airstrikes injured 48 people, including 5 children, in Kharkiv over past week
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