DNIPRO, UKRAINE — Volodymir awoke Monday night just before midnight to an air raid alert. These alerts happen every night in this city of one million in the eastern half of Ukraine, and so residents don’t always rush to bomb shelters, even when it’s just in the basement.
Standing outside his apartment on Tuesday, Volodymir, age 73, told me that he and his wife decided to stay put in this first-floor apartment where they have lived for 50 years.
But soon the danger of the situation became clear, as public intelligence channels reported multiple ballistic missiles heading toward Dnipro, the biggest population center close to Russian-controlled territory.
This wasn’t going to be a normal night of attacks. It was going to get ugly. Volodymir and his wife got out of bed and began dressing to head to the shelter. That’s when the first Shahed drone hit.
Shaheds are large Russian drones of Iranian origin that come packed with explosive payloads. Around 11:30 PM Monday night, one made a direct hit on the local newsroom of Suspilne, the national public broadcaster, after which the road, Televiziina Street, is named.
That explosion was less than 100 yards from Volodymir’s apartment, and so he and his wife decided to lie low at home.
That’s when the second Shahed crashed close behind Volodymir’s apartment on Telviziina Street.
In both of his south-facing rooms, the windows were blown out and the doors blown off the hinges. Volodymir showed me around the apartment, where he had already swept up most of the glass and put one door back on the hinges.
From the two explosions, at least three different buildings had many windows blown out.
Valeria Pashko, a Suspilne editor, told me on Tuesday that the fire spread throughout the building over the course of a few evenings. A colleague rescued a couple of laptops and a camera, she said. Also, a string bass leaned against a tree outside the building.
On Tuesday morning, the debris was still smoking from the prior night’s drone attack. Two cars parked in front of the building were torched down to the metal.
Behind Volodymir’s building, shattered glass covered the walkways and the playground. An excavator hauled off debris of all sorts. Volunteers from a non-profit arrived in a van with sheets of plywood, and two men worked to cut the sheets to size.
On one side of Televiziina Street, the city of Dnipro operated a blue aid tent. A tent marked with the name and logo of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees operated across the street.
At noon, firemen were still working on the Suspline building, more than 12 hours after the drone attack.
Pieces of the drone lay on the driveway behind the apartment building.
There was no plausibly legitimate military target nearby. Pashko, the editor at Suspilne, said she believed, based on the evidence, that her news outlet was deliberately targeted.