I met Larysa standing on broken glass outside her building in Kyiv, trying to convince two municipal workers to come up to her house and fix her broken windows.
A few hours earlier, she had been deeply shaken by a huge explosion in the parking lot of the residential complex three stories below her.
She invited us inside saying she was terrified by the explosion.
Larysa was clearly in shock and very tearful.
Hypersonic missiles fired by Russia in a few hours of strikes – the last war
As we walked towards the entrance to his block, I looked up; dozens and dozens of windows were smashed floor after floor of the building.
Inside, the workers started cleaning up as we chatted.
“There was an explosion, and of course I jumped immediately,” she told me.
“I just looked outside and saw people running, so I ran into my apartment and checked all my windows…and then I saw the ambulance and the fire department coming 15 minutes later. “
She kept telling me how much she worried about her grandchildren so I asked her if she could try explaining to another grandma in the UK what it was like to live this war.
“Oh, don’t even ask, I’m mostly worried about my children and grandchildren, one of my sons is on the front line, the eldest. I’m not worried about me, I have the skin thick, so it’s fine, but my children…”
A missile hit a residential area in the Svyatoshyns’kyi district of kyiv
“Damn them!
Larysa grew increasingly upset as we spoke – and she’s especially upset about Russiaits inhabitants and President Putin.
“Damn them! I hope they can hear me, even friends I’ve known there all my life…damn them!
“I don’t worry about myself, I’m old, but I worry about my children and grandchildren,” she repeated.
“I want this to end as soon as possible, I want Putin to die…”
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Residents walk past the destruction
Shrapnel marks a children’s playground
In the parking lot below, police searched for fragments of a missile that hit this residential part of kyiv, in the Svyatoshyns’kyi district. They were trying to figure out exactly what it was.
THE The Russians fired a whole range of weapons across the land, shattering the morning peace with devastating effect.
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Deadly strikes hit Kyiv and Lviv regions
Cars here burst into flames as the missile slammed into the ground, and dozens upon dozens of apartment windows were shattered in the blast.
The children’s play area was also not spared – we saw shrapnel marks on the swings and slides.
A few men were examining their damaged vehicles, seeing what they could fix.
“As you see we are just trying to fix it and keep living and hoping for the best…all wars in history have an end so hopefully it will be quick and peace will come soon” , said one of them. Me.
Strikes and sirens are part of life in Kyiv
Council workers have started delivering large rolls of plastic sheeting for people to repair their windows as best they can.
It’s relatively mild here Ukraine at the moment, but temperatures can drop within hours.
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How important were the missile strikes?
It was a massive Russian attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and one of the targets was a power plant in kyiv, which burned all morning.
By the time we got there, the fire was out, but there were power cuts caused by the attack.
People take shelter in a subway station during an alarm
Air raid sirens sounded periodically throughout the day here in the capital, and after three weeks of relative calm, we saw some locals once again return to the metro to wait for the green light.
This surprised me; that even after all this time, people still run for cover when the sirens sound.
It’s part of life here now.
