After more than three years of war, while peace talks remain deadlocked, Russia has stepped up its attacks on civilians.
Ukrainian cities are increasingly vulnerable despite massive air defense efforts - a reality that Kiev experienced again during a night attack on August 1, one of the bloodiest in recent times.
The survival of the young woman, who Ukrainian media presents as 23-year-old Veronika, surprised even the most experienced emergency workers. The explosion was so powerful that it threw her, along with her bed, directly out the window of her ninth-floor apartment. She "landed" in front of the building with a broken leg, concussion, missing tooth and severe shock. Doctors consider her survival a “true miracle”, Stirile ProTV reports, quoted by FOKUS.
“I heard an explosion and a second later I was on the ground”, she told Ukrainian television station 1+1. She believes the bed saved her from falling, cushioning the terrible impact with the ground.
The director of the hospital where she was admitted, Serhiy Dubrov, told Reuters: “This is extraordinary. Falling from the ninth floor and only having relatively minor injuries... But she is in a deep state of psychological shock and still does not know what happened to her parents.“
Both of the girl's parents were killed, their bodies pulled from the rubble of the tower, which was partially destroyed by a Russian missile, according to information confirmed on Friday.
According to Ukrainian media, the death toll in the Russian attack on Kiev on Wednesday night into Thursday was 31, 28 of whom were in the apartment building where Veronika lived. Among the victims were five children, the youngest of whom was just two years old. Another approximately 160 people were injured, including 16 children.
The mayor of the Ukrainian capital, Vitali Klitschko, said that "this is the largest number of children injured in one night in Kiev since the beginning of the large-scale war“, provoked by Russia in Ukraine.