Maxim was on furlough from the front lines to celebrate his wife’s birthday for the first time in six months when Russian missiles slammed into the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, damaging her home.
“I’m very angry,” Maxim said as he prepared to return, more determined than ever to push back the Russians in northeastern Ukraine and do whatever it takes to protect his loved ones.
He was due to return on Monday after his week’s vacation but the Ukrainian army has now given him an extra day to clean up the mess at his home.
“As long as (Vladimir) Putin is in power, it can happen anywhere,” says Maxim, a burly 45-year-old.
The businessman, who joined the nationwide call to arms just after the Russian invasion on February 24, vented his anger and frustration.
“It had been more than half a year since I was home. I had the right to celebrate my wife’s birthday here,” he said, his military papers in hand.
“We’re fighting on the frontlines, precisely to protect these places,” far from the frontlines, he said. “But they still manage to meet her.”
Two days after partially destroying the only bridge between Russia and Crimea, a humiliation for Putin, Russia fired 83 missiles at Ukraine, about 43 of which were shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, the Defense Ministry said.
The 40 others hit many power plants and civilian infrastructure, killing at least 11 people and wounding 64 others across Ukraine, according to the latest official figure.
– “Putin is evil” –
According to military governor Valentin Reznichenko, four people were killed and 19 injured by Russian missiles in the Dnipro region.
However, not a single person died in the region’s capital, also named Dnipro, and the city was “lucky,” said a spokeswoman for the rescue services.
In a residential area of ??Dnipro, where desolate Soviet-era buildings stretch endlessly, a first missile strike hit an idle factory.
The second landed 10 seconds later in the middle of the road and tore out a crater several meters deep.
A video of the strike, circulating on social media, shows flames reaching higher than the 12-story building where Maxim lives.
Oleg Komar, a businessman in his 30s, thought he was in a movie.
“There was a huge red light. Smoke was everywhere. It was hell.”
The impact came just yards from a badly damaged bus, injuring the driver and some passengers, according to the city’s transport director Sviatoslav Makov.
In Ukraine “we hope for the best but prepare for the worst,” said Oleg Komar.
Another resident of the city, Andrii Khalik, 39, spoke to his family about the immense shock.
Her small desk and toys were more or less intact, but his five-year-old daughter Milana, wearing her pretty pink coat, is now certain: “Putin is a villain.”
