Drone attack on office building in Kyiv: “We are all living targets for Putin”

It was a normal working day when a Russian drone hit the parking lot of an office complex in a popular Kyiv district. Several people died. Most of them were passers-by. Three bodies lie on the street in front of the office building, rescue workers and paramedics are looking after the injured. Police have blocked off all four lanes of the road. The asphalt is littered with broken glass and metal fragments from the drone. There are several broken cars nearby, some covered in blood.

"My brother wanted to pick me up in the car nearby. We were talking on the phone when there was an explosion. Then the siren sounded and the connection suddenly stopped. I was desperate. I thought he had died," says Anna Dehtiar, 45, a real estate agent. She finally finds her brother, wounded and covered in blood, but alive. An ambulance takes him to the hospital. “His car overturned,” she said. “But we were lucky.” A 22-year-old man was killed nearby, as was a woman who was walking to the bus stop. “All of us here are just living targets for Putin,” says Anna. Her hands are shaking.

More and more people arrive at the scene of the attack and try to find out what happened to their relatives who work at Incom, the large business center that became the scene of the tragedy. Volodymyr Koshevyi, a soldier on crutches and a neck brace, came to help an injured relative. His nickname is “Dancer”.

“I just returned from the East, where I was wounded,” he says. On the way to the hospital he heard about the explosion and came here immediately. "Yesterday my comrades were wounded in Kramatorsk, today it's my relative in Kyiv. Now the front is everywhere," says the man, wearing a black fleece sweater with a "Dancer" patch on his chest. "Before the war I was a professional dancer, but now everyone has to fight. You can see for yourself that the Russians won't stop," he says, pointing to the destroyed office building from which smoke is still rising. "The death toll in the capital has risen to seven. So far, 46 people have been injured. 25 of the injured are being treated in the city's hospitals," Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on his official social media channels.

This wasn't the first attack of the day. The morning in Kyiv began with a Russian drone hitting a residential building in the capital's Pechersk district. A 14-year-old boy died."The drone hit the apartment right next to ours. There was no air alert, so my six-year-old son was still sleeping at the time. I covered my son with my body just moments before shards of glass and window frames fell on him," says 51-year-old Olena Dudenko while holding her son's hand. Her home and car were damaged.

"My son started first grade this September, but instead of having lessons, the children are constantly sitting in the shelter. The warnings and attacks never stop. I fled the war in Donetsk in 2014, and now I don't know where else to flee," says Olena. She looks at the building with the gaping black hole in the facade.

This summer, the strategy of Russia's attacks on Kyiv changed. While the armed forces previously attacked the capital with missiles and drones primarily at night, jet-powered drones are now also used during the day. Constant air alerts are disrupting Kyiv's transportation system and affecting the operations of schools, shopping centers, gas stations and government facilities.