The film crew was not injured in the explosion, and the perpetrator of the attack is still unknown.
‘s film crew found themselves in a dangerous situation on Sunday afternoon when a grenade exploded near them in the small town of Vovchansk, east of Kharkiv, Ukraine.
‘s foreign editor Mika Mäkeläinen‘s photographer Juha Kivioja and their Ukrainian fixer Konstantin Ilianok were filming next to the road for a news story when a grenade exploded on the road less than a hundred meters from their car.
Mäkeläinen says that none of them were injured, and the car was not damaged either.
– It is possible that we were shot on purpose, Mäkeläinen assessed by phone.
There is no certainty about the perpetrator of the grenade attack.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement published on Sunday morning in your Facebook update (you switch to another service), that the Russian artillery has fired on the Vovchansk region during the previous day. Also following the war situation in Ukraine of the Live U Map website (you will switch to another service) according to which Russia has fired on the Vovchansk region.
According to Mäkeläinen, the situation came so suddenly that they didn’t have time to react. First there was a small whistling sound and then there was a bang and a cloud of black smoke.
– The grenade hit the asphalt road behind our car. We ran behind the neighboring houses for cover. When the second grenade didn’t come after us, we ran to the car and drove away from the scene, Mäkeläinen describes.
Mäkeläinen says that the venue is only about five kilometers to the Russian border.
According to Mäkeläinen, local residents have told him that Russian artillery fires grenades at Vovchansk almost every day. That’s why the locals move very little outside.
– This is how Russia normally terrorizes that city, says Mäkeläinen.
Mäkeläinen says that before the explosion they heard artillery shots and saw clouds of smoke in the sky. However, he estimated that they were at least 5-6 kilometers away from their whereabouts.
– The target was someone else. Today, not a single grenade had hit the city of Vovchansk before this.
Vovchansk is one of the cities liberated by Ukraine last year. Before the war, there were 16,000–17,000 inhabitants. Now there are no more than two thousand of them left. According to Mäkeläinen, people do not dare to return to the city because it is still a dangerous place.
There is currently no active battle in the city.