<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/26/i-havent-slept-for-two-days-kharkiv-residents-reel-from-russian-attacks>
"About 1am on Friday, Yuliia Verbytska woke to the sound of an air raid siren.
She grabbed her teenage children – Dmitry, 17, and Olexiy, 12 – and sat in the
corridor, checking her phone. In the sky above came an ominous whine. Minutes
later, a Russian drone crashed into the disused soap factory down the road in
Polyova Street. There was an enormous explosion.
“We don’t have a shelter in our building, so we hide behind two concrete walls.
All the neighbours sit together. You wonder if this is your last moment,” she
said. Friday’s raid followed a massive attack on Thursday on Verbytska’s home,
Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, and on the capital, Kyiv, where 12 people were
killed. “I haven’t slept for two days,” she said wearily.
Exhausted residents sweeping up glass and fixing broken panels pointed out that
the latest attack came hours after a post from Donald Trump on social media. It
said: “Vladimir, STOP.” Russia’s president, it seemed, had decided to ignore
Trump’s rare rebuke. Despite peace negotiations and an appeal by Ukraine’s
president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a month-long ceasefire, the Russians were
bombing as usual.
One of the damaged buildings belongs to a charity, Heart of Kharkiv, where
Verbytska works as a volunteer. Bits of concrete fell amid clothes and donated
shoes. Children’s drawings were blown from a noticeboard. The charity’s
wheelchairs and pushchairs survived unscathed. “I don’t believe in promises or
words. Not from Trump or anybody else. I don’t really have much faith in
anything any more,” Verbytska said gloomily.
By late morning, emergency service workers were still extinguishing small
blazes in the now-ruined factory. Built in 1918, it once made soap for the
Soviet Union. It went bankrupt last year. The Kremlin’s drones narrowly missed
an old acacia tree by its entrance gate. They flattened a brick administration
building. Firefighters doused charred beams and splashed among puddles and
piles of twisted metal.
“They are fascists. Inhuman people. Barbarians. Cruel,” the complex’s security
guard, Anton, said, when asked what he thought about Russians. “They want to
destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians. That’s their plan.” He was sceptical that the
peace process – Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks on Friday with
Putin in Moscow – would lead to a settlement that might end the fighting.
The security guard said Zelenskyy would be unwise to accept the US’s latest
leaked proposal. It envisages handing Crimea and four other Ukrainian regions
to Russia. Ukraine gets back a sliver of territory in the Kharkiv region.
“Today it’s five oblasts. Tomorrow, the Russians will demand another five.
Zelenskyy should not sign,” he said. He dismissed Trump as a “Russian agent
recruited long ago”, and said: “I’m disappointed that the Americans elected
him.”
Russia says its devastating attacks are against Ukrainian military objects. Its
latest murderous barrage follows a double strike this month on the
north-eastern city of Sumy, in which 35 people were killed. Most were
travelling on a bus when an Iskander missile exploded next to them.
Overwhelmingly, the victims of Russia’s air raids are civilians. They include
two children killed on Thursday and dug from the rubble of their Kyiv apartment
block."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
