Russian Strike Kills Six Civilians as Ukrainians Struggle to Resume Routine

KRYVIY RIH, Ukraine—When Tetiana Kucher heard the first explosion Monday morning, she stepped onto her balcony and snapped a photo of the smoke billowing up about a mile away—the type of scene she had grown used to after 17 months of war.

The next missile hit her building, killing at least six including a mother and her 10-year-old daughter, who lived down the hall.

“Everything was shaking,” said Kucher, 55 years old. “Dishes were falling down.”

More than a year into the war, Russian missiles and shells are chewing away at Ukrainians going about their daily business in cities miles from the front lines. Russia says it is targeting military facilities, but the strike in the industrial Kryviy Rih in central Ukraine is the latest in a string of attacks over the past week that killed civilians and damaged infrastructure. The port city of Odesa has been repeatedly struck by Russian missiles, which damaged its cathedral, as well as critical infrastructure for exporting grain. At least four people were killed by shelling in the southern city of Kherson on Monday.

“The enemy has been stubbornly attacking cities, city centers, shelling civilian objects and housing,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram, adding that five floors of the apartment building in Kryviy Rih had been destroyed. “But this terror will not frighten us or break us. We are working and saving our people.”

The missile ripped a 50-foot hole in the apartment block and damaged buildings up to a quarter-mile away. More than 70 people were injured, according to Ukrainian officials.

A familiar, grim routine was under way within minutes. A crane was brought in to remove unstable pieces of the building. The Red Cross set up a tent, where volunteers patched minor wounds while those with more serious injuries, such as dislocations, were loaded into ambulances and sent to the hospital. Psychologists were on hand to offer their services.

Hundreds of volunteers descended on the area, sweeping up glass and handing out water.

In the school across the street, the windows that were still intact were taken from their frames and brought inside so they wouldn’t shatter in case of another strike.

A dozen structures along the street were damaged by the explosion. Slabs of concrete hung from a roof two buildings down. Businessmen in shirt sleeves carried plywood boards to cover broken windows. An elderly woman, her head covered in a flower-patterned bandanna, swept glass from the sidewalk.

Victims of the attack, meanwhile, were soon trying to get on with their daily lives.

Kucher and her husband stood across the street from their building, waiting in line to get plastic covers for their shattered windows. They weren’t sure when they would be allowed back inside, and Kucher was still wearing the pink socks and blue plastic slippers she had on when they ran down the stairs out of the building.

They would stay with her mother tonight, they said, but planned to move back in when they could.

“It’s our home,” Kucher’s husband, Serhiy Kukol, said. “It’s hard to think about leaving home.”

Yana Panyuta sustained minor injuries: The blast had thrown her against the wall of her home, located behind the apartment building, and she was briefly knocked unconscious. When she came to, she knew the drill: She found her mother and their dog, and got everyone out of the area. A few hours later, she was at the school, registering as a victim in hopes of receiving compensation later. All 14 of the windows in her home had been blown out.

Viktoria Lupiychuk, 42, and her mother were also waiting to register. The women, along with Lupiychuk’s 12-year-old daughter, had spent most of the war in Poland, but returned to Kryviy Rih a few months ago, hoping that the acute threat faced in the war’s early days—when Russian forces were closing in on this southern city—was now over.

“You don’t think it will happen to you,” she said, adding that when she read of missile strikes in other areas, she thought, “It’s terrible, but you don’t think a missile will hit your building.”

Her mother, Tetiana Trotsik, said she wasn’t sure they would ever feel safe in the apartment again. Her granddaughter was in the same dance class as the 10-year-old girl who was killed. She assumed a Security Service of Ukraine building next door had been the target. Another of that agency’s buildings in Dnipro was hit last week.

Lupiychuk said she was angry these types of strikes were still going on. She said that Western leaders speak of their admiration for Ukrainian bravery, but don’t do enough to stop the violence.

“For now, we’ve moved to my relatives’ house,” Lupiychuk said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a choice but to come back here, when we can.”

—Nikita Nikolaienko contributed to this article.

Write to Ian Lovett at [email protected]