A building was damaged by the Russian bombardment in Kharkov, on Friday. Photo REUTERS
A team of bomb disposal experts are working on the streets of Kharkov for the remains of Russian rockets, after this city, the second largest in Ukraine, suffered intense bombing.
The city, located a dozen kilometers from the Russian border, suffered extensive damage in the early days of the aggression launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Although kyiv has retained control of the city, it is still under daily attacks, with bomb disposal experts constantly called upon to remove the remnants of the Russian ordnance.
“We receive more than 50 calls a day,” said Igor, the lieutenant colonel in charge of the group that removes explosive debris on the streets of Kharkov.
“On Wednesday we received 82 calls,” he told AFP.
A Ukrainian serviceman walks next to the wreckage of a Russian Tochka U ballistic missile, as Russia continues its attack on Ukraine, in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, in this handout photo released on April 23, 2022. Press service of Ukrainian Ground Forces/Handout by REUTERS THIS PHOTO IS PROVIDED BY THE THIRD PARTY.
Residential districts in the northeast of Kharkiv are hit daily by attacks that can occur at any time of the day or night and are often fatal.
On Thursday, his first job was at a school.
Debris and holes in the roof
In an office on the first floor, sunlight penetrated a hole opened in the ceiling by a rocket with a diameter of more than one meter. The windows were shattered and piles of rubble covered the floor.
“There was a bullet in the neighborhood and it hit the roof,” said a woman who drove them to school.
“We are so scared, we don’t know if it will explode or not,” he added.
Upon tracing the rubble, they could find nothing. But outside they saw a fragment of the rocket.
A building completely destroyed by a Russian fire in Kharkov, Ukraine. Photo: EFE
Just 300 meters away, they found another piece, the queue coming out of the concrete of Soviet -era buildings.
One of the workers tried to pull it out but refused to provide a metal tube, so they used a shovel to dig it out.
Weapons during the Soviet era
They recognize him as the remnants of a shell fired by a Soviet rocket launcher BM21 Grad, with a range of 45 kilometers and capable of firing 40 consecutive rounds.
Their next task is on the 11th floor where they use a small staircase to reach the roof of a building.
From there they overlook Kharkov and see a forest to the northeast from where Russian soldiers are bombing the city.
The front line is less than five kilometers away.
In the ceiling there is a large hole, through which they must go down to look for the remains of the rocket.
Like the other charred metal fragments they collected during the day, they loaded it into their 4×4 vehicle.
Outside, a man approached to hand them a piece of metal.
“For the next best thing, he called us and we went to look for him,” one of the experts told him.
They immediately went to the east of the city, near the road that had become no man’s land between the two sides.
A car was hit by the Russian bombing of the city of Kharkov, a few days ago. Photo: REUTERS
There was a five -story building there that was hit and punctured in front of the cement and there was a black crater between the second and third floors.
A missile in the bathroom
inside they found a long fragment of a Grad rocket embedded in the bathroom from an apartment on the first floor, where a woman named Antonina lived who was outside when she fell.
“When I came home, everything was destroyed,” he told AFP.
“It’s scary,” he added.
Within three hours of work, Ukrainian artillery strikes in response to attacks by Russian rockets were present as background noise.
On the same day, one person was killed and two others were injured in an attack in northeastern Kharkov, as the day before.
Source: AFP
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