This is what it looks like when a 38-foot missile designed to take out an aircraft carrier slices an apartment building in half. The building housed hundreds of families in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro. The apartment with the yellow kitchen was the home of the Korenovsky family.
A kitchen belonging to the Koronevsky family is ripped open after a Russian missile destroyed much of an apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro on January 14, 2023.
The apples still lying on the table, right at the cliff where the rest of the building was split off, offer a clear example of the suddenness with which Russia’s merciless war in Ukraine can destroy civilian lives.
Before Russia hit Dnipro with a barrage of air and sea-launched cruise missiles, Mykhailo Koronevsky, a boxing trainer, had celebrated his young daughter’s birthday in this kitchen. A video shared widely on social media this week shows her blowing out four candles on a cake in front of the distinctive yellow cabinets.
An image from video widely circulated on social media shows one of Mykhailo Koronevsky’s daughters blowing out birthday candles on a cake at her apartment in Dnipro.
On Saturday, Mykhailo stayed at home while his wife and daughters went for a walk. The national boxing federation of Ukraine confirmed he was killed when the Russian missile tore a gaping hole in the long block. The rest of his family survived.
A US official told CBS News’ David Martin that the Russian military may have hit the Dnipro apartment building with an air-launched AS-4 “Kitchen” missile. The missiles were developed by the Soviet Union to attack aircraft carriers and their accompanying warships.
Ukraine hit by new barrage of Russian missile attacks 02:02
On Tuesday, the confirmed death toll from the weekend attack on the apartment building rose to 45 as Koronevsky’s family buried her husband and father and search teams continued to comb the rubble. According to a regional military official in Dnipro, at least six children were among the dead.
Other survivors of the attack and local residents staged a small demonstration in front of the massive pile of twisted metal and crumbled concrete under the gap in the building. A video posted online by an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry shows them asking the international community to provide Ukraine with more tactical weapons and establish a no-fly zone over their country to stop the rain of missiles on their homes.
Local residents hold a small demonstration in Dnipro, Ukraine, calling on the country’s supporters to supply more arms and enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine to stop Russia’s airstrike on civilian infrastructure, January 17, 2023. Telegram/Anton Gerashchenko
“Here people cooked, talked in the kitchen, celebrated holidays, laughed, argued,” wrote Ukrainian MP Zoya Yarosh in a post on her Facebook page that included a photo of the destroyed kitchen. “These are the wounds on the body of Ukraine. Wounds on our homes.”
Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s president’s chief of staff, told delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday that his country has reported at least 80,000 suspected Russian war crimes since Vladimir Putin started his war nearly 11 months ago.
“We registered 80,000 crimes committed by Russian invaders and over 9,000 civilians were killed, including 453 children,” Yermak said. “We will not forgive a single (act of) torture or life killed. Every criminal will be held accountable.”
War criminals investigators in Ukraine discover traces of torture 02:51
As the Koronevsky family and other Dnipro residents buried loved ones, reports came in that more Russian bombs had fallen on the cities of Kupiansk and Kherson. There were no immediate reports of casualties, but civilian infrastructure was also hit here, with a transport school in Kupiansk being destroyed.
In commemorating the victims of the Dnipro strike, including the family with the “kitchen the color of the sun,” Ukrainian lawmaker Yarosh ended by vowing that despite the wounds, Russia “will inflict on the body of Ukraine and her children.” …they won’t kill us all…we will win.”
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