On the night of August 30, the Russian army carried out a combined massive strike on Zaporizhzhia. One person was killed, and 28 were injured. Several private and multi-story buildings, as well as infrastructure facilities, were damaged in the city, and fires broke out. Emergency services are working on the sites.
Correspondents from Suspilne witnessed how the city is recovering from the night attack.
In one of the districts of Zaporizhzhia, the aftermath of the massive Russian shelling is still being addressed. Rescuers and utility workers are working on site. Alongside them are local residents helping to put out the fires.
As a result of the shelling, one of the city’s bus stop complexes was damaged — nearby, employees of a shop are trying to clean up and salvage the surviving products.
Julia stands near the damaged building, holding her dog. The woman was sheltering from Russian missiles and drones in the stairwell:
“I was in the stairwell. We heard from the neighbors that Shaheds were flying. I rarely go outside, but today I went out. Then the Shahed explosions started. Later, I read that ballistic missiles were coming. And we were in the stairwell. We heard the explosions just then. The whole building was covered in smoke. It was very frightening. The first thing I thought was that people should be alive.”
The woman still cannot enter her apartment — the doors were damaged by the blast wave. But this is not the first time Julia’s home has been hit by shelling:
“When I got to the apartment, the door was bent halfway. My husband was inside, he was sleeping. Everything is fine, he’s unharmed. Everything in the apartment is destroyed: the furniture — everything. Right now, we still can’t get into the apartment to start moving things out. I’m calming down now, but I don’t know what I’ll do next. This has happened before — the windows were blown out, and they already replaced them, and we were planning more work because we have cracks in the ceiling. We were planning renovations, but now I don’t even know what to do.”
Julia managed to take her dog with her, but her cat stayed at home — and she is now searching for it:
“I took my dog with me to the shelter. She’s no longer scared. She just sat quietly, my moral support. I don’t know where my cat is. I’m going to look for her now. I think she hid somewhere. There was dust everywhere, everything shook. We didn’t expect anything else to hit here; we thought it would be over.”
Irina was also sheltering from the shelling with her pet — a parrot. A fire broke out in the stairwell of the building where she lives as a result of the Russian attack:
“We were hiding in the stairwell. Plaster and everything started falling on us. In another stairwell, people were trapped. People are screaming from the windows, suffocating — everything is on fire. I haven’t gone into the apartment yet; everything is destroyed: the metal door, the furniture — everything is smashed. My parrot, Glasha, is scared of the explosions, especially the ‘Iskander’ missiles. You can’t prepare for this, you always hope for the best. Everything in the apartment is in ruins, the fridge is open. Everything was burning, my hands are covered in soot.”
Another Zaporizhzhia resident, Julia, is still searching for her four-legged pet after the shelling. To get into her own apartment, she had to pry open the doors damaged by the explosion:
“The door was jammed. The wardrobe is ruined, everything is ruined. This was the first time I got into the apartment, the door was stuck. At first there were Shaheds — unexpected. And then we hear — boom! Everything exploded, damn it. The Shaheds survived, but nothing flew out during them, and then came the missiles. They had just replaced our windows! Just replaced them! Volunteers did it. The second door is gone. How are we supposed to live? Somewhere, my cat. No cat. At least the cat wasn’t killed.”
The day before the shelling, Julia was preparing for her son’s birthday, but the Russian attack ruined the celebration:
“Tomorrow was supposed to be my child’s birthday. Well, there goes the birthday. He said, ‘Make me Olivier salad.’ I had already boiled the eggs, I was going to buy a cake. But now everything — it’s all over. My child was with me. Then they took him away. The building was on fire, he was crying so much during the Shaheds, and when the missiles came — it was terrifying.”
Victoria was also sheltering in the stairwell from Russian shells — after the explosion, smoke and dust quickly spread through the building:
“We were in the stairwell; we always go out when there’s an alarm. Literally seven minutes before the explosions, we went out. Boom! It was very strong, with a bright flash. We didn’t understand where it was. The door opened and closed. There was dust, smoke, you couldn’t breathe. Then we ran to see what happened. Three apartments were jammed. People were trapped inside. A neighbor immediately started calling the rescuers because we couldn’t do anything. In one apartment, there was an elderly woman; in another, this neighbor and his husband. The rescuers arrived — they broke the doors down.”
At the site of Oksana’s family home — a pile of bricks, dust, and shards of glass. The cozy home, into which the family had invested all their money and energy, is now half-destroyed:
“My family and I were in the hallway when the first explosion happened. Then there were more explosions. The rescuers arrived, took us with them, and we stayed there until six in the morning. They brought us back here, and after the missiles, nothing is left. We have no walls, no windows, no roof. We had bought it before the war; we only managed to finish the bathroom, to be honest, and then the war started, and we didn’t have the funds to do anything else. We spent half our lives in loans to buy our dream. How can we just leave it? We need to clean up, we need to somehow restore it — I don’t know, we’re not going anywhere.”
Valeriy had lived in his house for 25 years, occasionally adding to and improving it. All his efforts were wiped out by the night shelling:
“I was in the utility room. A Shahed flew right into my yard. Everything collapsed, was destroyed. Then, after a while, either a missile or something else hit… very close. And everything else was ruined. I can’t find my cat; she was outside, I’m looking, can’t find her. She got scared. It’s frightening, unpleasant feelings, of course. The heating system was destroyed; there’s work to be done everywhere. I’ll stay here. Where else could I go? I’ll find a place and set up a tent in the yard.”
Near the site of the shelling, among the rubble, dust, and glass, walks the cat Zhulia. The furry animal lived in a pet store, which was destroyed in the Russian attack. The explosion trapped her, but she was rescued from under the debris — now the store’s owners will take the cat home.
