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Rockets strike residential area of Kyiv, destroying apartments and sparking fires

Witnesses in the Ukrainian capital described feeling shock waves after hearing two rounds of strikes

A firefighter stands in a destroyed house after bombardment in Kyiv on March 23. (Vadim Ghirda/AP)
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KYIV, Ukraine — A hail of rockets hit a residential neighborhood near the center of Ukraine’s capital early Wednesday, sparking fires and battering apartment buildings. Witnesses in Kyiv described feeling shock waves after hearing two rounds of strikes.

A police officer at the scene confirmed to The Washington Post that a Russian Grad rocket had landed on the roof of a building and crashed into an apartment. The officer said it appeared to be the first time that such a weapon, typically fired from a multiple rocket launcher, had hit central Kyiv in nearly a month of war.

The rocket was still inside the apartment, and officials were waiting for experts to assess whether it could cause another explosion. The building is near a recruitment office for the Ukrainian military, according to Google Maps and other directories.

The warhead of a Grad rocket is designed to produce more than 3,000 fragments that can kill or injure within a radius of about 100 feet, said Richard Weir, a crisis and conflict researcher at the advocacy group Human Rights Watch. “These rockets are indiscriminate, and their use in populated areas violates the law of war,” Weir said.

Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said that one person wounded in the onslaught was taken to a hospital and that authorities were seeking more information on casualties.

The rocket strikes badly damaged a cluster of buildings in the neighborhood, including Fayna Town, a new residential complex.

A woman named Oksana, who declined to give her last name because of security concerns, said she had lived for 30 years in the building whose roof was struck by the suspected Grad rocket. Leaning out of her first-floor window, she described how a barrage of about 20 rockets struck the area starting at 7:45 a.m. local time.

One landed just beyond the playground outside their building, she said.

“When the missile hit the building, it was like it was raining glass,” Oksana said, describing the sound of windows in the building blowing out at once. “There was a shock wave each time.” Her windows were among the few that withstood the blasts — protected by the wood her son had nailed in shortly after the war began.

In the past month, she said, the population of the building had reduced to about 60 percent. Around half of those remaining fled after the morning attack. She and her son, Oleksander, decided to stay.

Oksana Astapova, a 27-year-old who lived in the building next door, said Wednesday that she woke up to her apartment shaking violently as rockets rained down. She took cover in the hallway with her partner and their infant, David, as well as her mother. Astapova had given birth just nine days ago, sheltering in a bunker at the hospital to stay safe.

The family escaped unscathed, but Astapova is hoping to move west and stay closer to the border with Poland to be safer. “I’m stressed and in shock,” she said. But the baby “didn’t cry at all.”

“He’s too young to understand,” she said.

One man stood on his balcony on the third floor, sweeping up glass from his blown-out windows.

Nearby, a man scampered to the top of the building with the badly damaged roof and lowered an electrical cord to a man below. Just hours after the attack, with a rocket still inside the building and police refusing access to journalists, residents were trying to repair their Internet connection.

Across the street, Olga Litvinova, 56, was among a group of residents lined up to report the damage to their apartments to a police officer collecting information. In a plastic bag next to the bench where they sat was what the officer described as the remnants of a Grad rocket.

Litvinova said she heard two barrages of rockets land nearby.

One landed just outside the building in front of a small hatchback car — blowing out its windows. Police told Litvinova that the vehicle helped absorb some of the impact, potentially saving lives.

The moment of the strike “is impossible to describe,” she said. “It was terrible, the walls were shaking.”

When it finally stopped, she said, she still felt scared to leave the hallway where she had taken cover. “We didn’t know if this was the end or not the end,” Litvinova said.

On the sidewalk across the street, some people examined the remnants of the rocket still lodged in the crater it had formed on the ground.

Just feet away, others laid out sheets of plastic, measuring them to fit windows broken in the blasts.

The Russian Defense Ministry released video on March 23 showing a targeted strike on an Ukrainian antiaircraft missile system in Kyiv. (Video: Russian Defense Ministry)

Five miles away, a Russian drone strike took out a Ukrainian antiaircraft missile system, according to a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry. The Russians claimed the strike was carried out by a guided missile and targeted a Ukrainian air defense complex. The video’s location was verified by The Post.

Weir confirmed that an antiaircraft missile system was hit in the clip. Video released by the State Emergency Service shows firefighters in the strike area, where buildings were smoldering. The sound of live rounds forces them to run behind a white building for shelter.

Kostiantyn Tatarchuk in Kyiv contributed to this report. Francis reported from London. Lee from Washington and Swaine from New York.

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