The villa area in Kramatorsk was bombed by Russia

KRAMATORSK. The residential area outside Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine woke up to a giant explosion on Wednesday morning.

Seconds later, lives were destroyed and another Russian war crime was piled up for investigation.

– Dad’s bed flew up several meters. He died immediately, as did three of his Russian toy dogs that shared the bed, Maria Litvinenko told Aftonbladet, on the spot at the several-meter-deep crater.

Maria Litvinenko, 35, has bandages on her forehead and a few small scratches on her hands. She miraculously survived when the roof collapsed on her and her eight-year-old daughter. Now an empty hole gapes towards the sky over beams and rubble.

In the room next door, it looks much the same – with another demolished wall.

Several meters below, a crater around ten meters wide and three meters deep can be seen in front of the house. Another 58-year-old man died in a house a hundred meters away.

That the eight-year-old survived is a miracle that the mother still hasn’t quite taken in.

Maria’s mother remains in the hospital, uncertain in what condition.

There is a lot to think about in the chaos of the once quiet residential suburb of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.
– I have no idea when we will be able to bury dad. The prosecutor is investigating the attack, says Maria Litvinenko.

Police bomb technicians will first try to investigate what type of Russian cruise missile, anti-aircraft robot or rocket caused the tragedy.

When Aftonbladet arrives, we see no traces of military installations in the neighborhood. Just apocalyptic devastation.

All around there is no sign of paralysis or paralyzing shock. On the contrary, it is abuzz with activity in a Ukraine where the population has become all too accustomed to attacks from the air. Technicians from the electricity company restore worn-out lines, gas specialists repair and secure lines, the civil defense sets up a tent and neighbors close up for the simple work of helping each other.

When Liliya Gordienko, 36, – on the other side of the crater – felt the bang, she immediately understood that it was in the direction where her father lives – and where her daughter slept the other night.
– His phone didn’t answer, so I called the neighbors who said he had survived.

When she and daughter Kseniya, aged 8, arrived at grandfather’s house, the daughter had severe anxiety – despite the sedative pill that mother had already given her. Grandfather Jaroslav Tomko’s house is mostly destroyed, precisely where he usually sleeps when the grandson is visiting.

Now everyone is helped to try to save at least some photographs, ID documents or memories. Eight-year-old Kseniya looks around. On the t-shirt you can read “Stand up for Ukraine”, but the girl has a hard time keeping the tears away. Her mother, kindergarten teacher Liliya Gordienko, fingers the crucifix she wears around her neck and explains:

– In the last year, I have lost a lot of my faith in God. It is difficult, she says.

Liliya is a widow after her husband died as a Home Guard soldier last year and shortly afterwards her mother’s heart failed. Her father, the widower Jaroslav thinks about the futility of terror:

– What will this lead to? I had a quiet and good life before all this, with my little pension and my tomatoes and potatoes in the kitchen garden, he says, pointing to the trees on the other side of the cliff with a bitter smile.