Bomb Blasts Turns Kharkiv Into a Dead City

KOMPAS/HARRY SUSILO

One of the commercial buildings damaged by Russian artillery attacks in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Saturday (2/7/2022).

Sunday (3/7/2022), at 06:26 a.m., Oleksii Migulin (54) received a call from his wife, Irina (51). They discussed what had happened a few hours earlier that weekend. For the first time since the Ukraine-Russian war, they felt the effects of a bomb at close range.

"Get well soon, hurry home. I'm okay here. Just focus on recovering. Follow the doctor's advice," Migulin told Irina over the phone.

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After hanging up the phone, Migulin recounted the incident on Sunday morning. “I was in the bathroom. My wife was outside the room. [We] couldn't sleep because Rema [their pet German shepherd] kept barking. He's not usually like that," said a resident of the Novobavarski district of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city in the northeastern region.

He did not even hear it when the earth and twigs thrown by the explosion hit the roof of the house.

That morning Migulin had just looked at the clock, which read 04:08 a.m., before, suddenly, there was an explosion. Its sound was so loud that he could not hear that part of the ceiling was crumbling, the glass was shattering and flying. He did not even hear it when the earth and twigs thrown by the explosion hit the roof of the house.

A number of items in his house were also thrown around, then destroyed. The cupboard door fell off, then hit the mattress. "If my wife had been sleeping, maybe her injury could be worse," said Migulin.

Because Rema was hard to please, he and Irina could not sleep. However, that was precisely what kept them from the bedroom destroyed by the bomb.

KOMPAS/HARRY SUSILO

Oleksii Migulin shows the damaged interior of his house after a Russian bomb hit his yard, on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday (3/7/2022).

In his room, apart from the cupboard door falling off, there was a lot of broken glass. There was also a blast hole which was just less than 2 meters from the wall of the house. This hole was 2 m deep and had a radius of about 3 m. The 30-centimeter-thick wall in his house was able to withstand the blast. Even so, the vibrations caused by the explosion were too strong for the glass and plaster of the walls of the house, which was built in 1953.

Irina's left arm was injured by the debris of objects that were ejected from the blast wave. She had to be hospitalized.

Irina complained about dizziness after being knocked down by the explosion. The explosion in her yard was caused by one of the bombs that Russia dropped on Kharkiv, on Sunday (3/7), in the early morning. There were also several other bombs that destroyed buildings in the Kyivskyi district. The bomb on Shevchenka Street destroyed part of the Kharkiv City Water Management Agency building.

Dead city

From morning to evening, explosions were heard at most five times and usually far outside the city of Kharkiv. Meanwhile, from night to morning, explosions could occur at any time in the city of Kharkiv.

The city was suddenly deserted after 05:00 p.m. to 06:00 a.m. In fact, the new curfew was enforced from 10:00 p.m. to 05:00 a.m. Many shops were closed by 05:00 p.m. People emptied the streets, then settled in their respective residences.

He was more often there alone because Irina fled to Lviv from late February to 18 May.

Like many houses built when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, Migulin's house has a basement for shelter. He used the room from March to April. He was more often there alone because Irina fled to Lviv from late February to 18 May.

Since Irina came back, the two of them kept hearing the sound of explosions. From morning to morning there was the sound of explosions. Before the final bomb in his garden, the nearest explosion occurred in a flat and a former engine factory almost 2 kilometers from his house.

In a separate place, the apartment complex where Vera Dmitrivna (65) once lived has been closed to civilians since March. The complex in the Saltivskyi district was regularly bombed. The Kharkiv Public Elementary School 165 in the vicinity of the complex has been targeted by 18 rockets in the last three months.

AFP/DIMITAR DILKOFF

A member of a demining team of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine carries a part of missile following Russian shelling in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, on April 28, 2022, on the 64rd day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Dmitrivna fled to her grandson's apartment, closer to the center of the city. Every day, Dmitrivna and her neighbors took turns looking at their apartment unit. "We have to make sure no thieves enter," she said.

Dmitrivna had not been able to go back there yet. Until now, the supply of electricity, water and gas meters in certain parts has not been restored. The electricity and gas problem could be overcome with a generator or portable stove. However, the water would be difficult to manage alone. Currently, she was waiting for the availability of the water supply.

"When the water flows again, even if it only reaches the yard, I will come back here," said the grandmother of three grandchildren.

The war forced her to leave the apartment and the area she had lived in for decades.

Dmitrivna has lived in the complex for 35 years. She felt at home and did not want to stay anywhere else. The war forced her to leave the apartment and the area she had lived in for decades.

The area where she lives should only be visited occasionally by people who actually live there. Visits could only be made from 09:00 a.m. to 04:00 p.m. There was no need for the army's permission to enter the closed area.

The Kharkiv city center road, which can reach a width of up to 30 m in certain parts, was suddenly empty of vehicles. Even ambulances and fire trucks rarely passed. The sound of passing vehicles each hour could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

On the contrary, the sound of explosions was heard more frequently. Explosions became more frequent as the summer sun set after 10 p.m. Some residents had to take sleeping pills every day in order to sleep. Without sleeping pills, they would keep waking up because of the explosions.

KOMPAS/HARRY SUSILO

The pit of a Russian airstrike bomb in the garden in front of the home of Oleksii Migulin, a resident, on the outskirts of the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday (3/7/2022).

"No matter how tired the residents are after work, people wake up when they hear any explosion, especially if the explosion is in the city," said Anya, a resident of the Slobitsky district.

She was not sure any Kharkiv residents were accustomed to the sound of explosions. The residents need to manage the shock caused by continuous explosions.

(This article was translated by Hyginus Hardoyo)