Residents of Dobropillia in eastern Ukraine have become used to Russian attacks since their neighbour invaded in February 2022 but this week’s cluster munition attack was of a different order.
Targeting the centre of the town, around 30km from the front line in the Donetsk region, the barragekilled 11 people and wounded 40 others, including six children, according to Ukrainian emergency services.
“It was apocalyptic,” said Iryna Kostenko, 59, her hand bandaged with blood-stained cloth.
People hug a crying woman near a damaged residential building following a strike in Dobropillia in Ukraine, which killed 11 people and wounded 40. Photo / AFP
Firstly, there was a “dull sound” in the night. Then the little market at the foot of her building “exploded”.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine are parties to the international treaty outlawing the use of cluster munitions – bombs which explode in mid-air and scatter miniature explosives, sometimes hundreds of them, over a wide area.
Several of Iryna’s neighbours died in the attack. She saw the bodies.
“The blood ... the clots ... Hit right in the head,” she muttered, staring vacantly at the blackened and scarred concrete. “It was horrible.”
Firefighters manning a hose to extinguish a structural fire following the Russian strike in Dobropillia. Photo / The State Emergency Service of Ukraine via AFP
She found Svitlana, who lived in her building, outside the entrance “lying dead on the ground with a sheet over her”.
A young couple who had recently moved into the area were “burnt alive”, she said.
As she spoke, firefighters fought to tackle a blaze still tearing through the blocks of flats.
“It was terrifying,” Iryna told AFP, adding that she had taken sedatives to calm her nerves.
She sat on a bench to recover her composure and munched mechanically on a sandwich proffered by her daughter Alina, 39, who lives a few streets away from the point of impact.
Alina’s 10-year-old daughter hid in the corridor with her during the attack, “covering her ears and crying”.
‘Hostages to this war’
Anna, another neighbour, said her 18-year-old daughter was hit by munitions fragments and was rushed to hospital by the emergency services.
“Her face was cut up and she had her arm bandaged. I started screaming and I don’t remember anything after that,” the 40-year-old nurse said.
Standing among the fire-destroyed market stalls and skeletons of burned-out cars, 53-year-old teacher Olena looked up blankly at the balconies hanging precariously from the facades of the damaged tenement blocks.
From the street she could see the interior of her old flat, with its lacerated pink wallpaper. She had heard the explosions from her new home, several streets away.
“It was really loud. Really scary,” she said, wondering where the bombs would fall next time.
“We’re hostages to this war,” she said, suppressing a sob.
Nearby, a woman in tears was being helped out of the same building by a man, pulling her away from wanting to go back inside to where someone had died.
“We must keep her alive in our memory,” he said, putting his arms around her.
Recent days have seen an intensification of Russian attacks on towns in eastern Ukraine that serve as logistics hubs for the Ukrainian Army due to their proximity to the front line.
The regional governor has urged civilians to leave.
Olena was evacuated in 2022 and then returned to live in Dobropillia. This time, she plans to leave and never come back.
