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KYIV — Ukrainians seeking shelter from Russia’s bombardment of Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday morning had nowhere to run to after they were locked out of a bomb shelter amid the wail of air raid sirens. At least three people, including a child, were killed and 19 injured, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Russia launched seven ballistic and three Iskander cruise missiles from the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, Kyiv’s air forces said, but though air defenses shot them all down, debris hit a hospital and numerous residential buildings, leading to the casualties.
With Russia increasing the frequency and ferocity of its missile attacks on Kyiv and other cities and towns around Ukraine, residents have less time to seek safety in the bomb shelters that have sprung up around the country in the wake of Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
In the early hours of Thursday, when most residents were in their homes, many asleep, the missiles arrived less than five minutes after the air raid sirens first sounded, signaling that an attack was incoming.
Several people died and others were injured after seeking to escape the incoming barrage at a local shelter in a health clinic in the Desnyansky district, but arrived to find it closed, Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne reported from the scene.
“The air raid alert started. We were running to a shelter. But nobody opened it for us. People were knocking for so long. Women with children were there,” Yaroslav, who witnessed the carnage, told Suspilne. His wife was among those killed by the debris from the Russian missile.
“My child survived, but my wife died,” Yaroslav said, sobbing. “We were together. I just ran to another side of the building to find somebody who would open the shelter for us.”
Kyiv authorities, including Mayor Vitali Klitschko and his deputies, are facing scrutiny for failing to establish a proper system for bomb shelters more than a year since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.
In the early days of the war, many shelters sprung up in metro stations and in residential building basements. But now, as Ukrainians suffer almost daily attacks from Russian rockets, there are increasing complaints about shelters that are inexplicably shut.
“In each district of the city, the heads of the institutions where the shelters are located and the heads of the districts are responsible for the operation of the shelters which are marked on the map of shelters in the capital,” Klitschko said in a Telegram statement Thursday morning after the attack.
Referring to the incident in the Desnyansky district, where fleeing Ukrainians reported being locked out of the health clinic, Klitschko said a shelter at a school next door was open, “and there were people in it.”
The mayor said law enforcement had opened a criminal investigation into the incident.
“A fragment of the rocket fell at the entrance to the medical facility four minutes after the air alert was announced. And people headed for shelter. Now the investigation is establishing whether the shelter was open. Were there people in it? Because, according to rescuers, after the damage to the health clinic, a group of people were taken out of it,” Klitschko said.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, a police general, said police had opened a case investigating whether the incident involved criminal negligence.
“Closed bomb shelters during the war are not just indifference,” Klymenko said. “As part of the investigation, we will find and bring to justice all the guilty parties. In addition, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, together with the National Police, will regularly check the availability and condition of bomb shelters in all populated areas of the country.”
