Nevertheless, I was already awake, so I decided to walk my dog. It is an English bulldog; her name is Beauty. We took our usual route through the forest. After a few seconds, I heard a rumble in the sky and wondered. It sounded exactly like a missile fight. After a few moments, the ground shook, and an explosion rang out. Although it was far from us, we felt it clearly. Then there was another explosion. This time already in the sky.
We run back home. I woke up my wife Olena. She was peacefully sleeping without any clue of what was happening at that moment in Ukraine.
*Meanwhile, Russia was carrying out an unprecedented rocket attack on Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war. Namely, it launched around 100 missiles attacking both civilian and critical infrastructure objects. Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Rivne, Ivano-Frankivsk, and other regions were under attack. The peak of strikes occurred before 9 am when public transport and the subway were overcrowded with people and children hurrying up for work. The Russian army used all their weapons, attacking from all possible directions. According to the command of the air forces of Ukraine, they were hit from the Caspian and the Black Sea, strategic bombers launching X-101, X-555, and 3M-54 Kalibr missiles. In addition, there were Iskander launches and Shahed-136 kamikaze drones, which Russia had previously purchased from Iran. Also, missile systems S-300 and „Tornado-S“ have multiple rocket launchers. The Ukrainian air defence eliminated 43 missiles out of more than 80, 13 UAVs, and 10 of 13 Shahed-136 kamikaze drones.
The sound of explosions was heard again. This time there were already more than 5 of them. Since I had already experienced the Russian offensive in February this year, my „bug-out bag“ was prepared long ago. It contained money, all our documents, water, canned goods, chocolate, etc.
We ran to the basement of our house. It was closed. Near the basement, we met a girl who was clearly panicking. She desperately tried to open the door, but nothing came out of it. Later, an employee of our housing office appeared and opened the basement. Powerful explosions were heard again. We were already inside. After a few minutes, other people began to enter. Everyone was terrified and nervous. This basement can hardly be called a reliable hiding place from Russian missiles, but it was still better than sitting in an apartment.
A lot of people have already gathered in this basement. You could see the way people handled stress. Thanks to the Internet, we knew that the rockets had hit the centre of Kyiv. Many people began to cry because their relatives and friends live there. And there was no connection with them. One woman began to cry loudly, saying, „the Russians will kill us all.“ Eventually, we calmed her down. After that, most people simply cursed Putin and all Russians.
I decided to take my dog to the toilet. However, the Ukrainian air defense shot down a Russian missile not far from us. There was a very loud roar. We run into the basement again. The dog was shaking with fear. So, we stayed in the basement for another several hours.
When I went out to buy some water and napkins in the supermarket, I saw dozens of people nervously running around buying everything from salt to water. They were panicking indeed, shouting some nonsense.
After 5 hours and 40 minutes, „white alert“ was finally announced. The dog went home, constantly hiding behind me. She was terrified. Well, so am I, nothing to hide here…
That's the morning the whole of Ukraine has had today. The morning of Putin's agony. The Russian army has completely degraded in 7 months of the war, so the Kremlin dictator has set a course for the destruction of Ukrainians on a national basis. This is not revenge for the Crimean bridge. On the contrary, the October 10 missile attack is an example of military terrorism on an unprecedented scale. The civilized world should respond to this not with concern, but with concrete actions: by providing Ukraine with the necessary weapons and air defence systems.
All these reminded many of the dreadful morning of February 24. Although, the difference is that Ukrainians are not scared anymore. Only hate towards Putin and a desire to fight, so all the Russians would experience everything Ukrainian people face every day. Ukrainians are as strong as ever, which means they will win. It is only a matter of time.
