A father in war-torn Ukraine has told the Mirror of a desperate dash to rescue his baby at the family’s battered home, as the country marks two years since the Russian invasion.
When the explosion rang out, Andryi sought to save his precious nine-month-old daughter. Racing downstairs, he found tiny Sasha and wife Vlada. Vlada held Sasha as, barefoot on shattered glass, Andryi and his wife ran for their lives.
Some 24 months on from Moscow’s full-scale invasion, this is the reality for Ukrainians. Death is still at their door. Some 60 metres away from their home in Mykolaiv, a key port city in Ukraine ’s south, horror struck.
The precise circumstances are unclear but it is thought debris could have hit from a downed Russian missile. One person was killed, others injured, buildings destroyed and a crater left in the road. It was another life lost to this conflict. For now, it feels like a war with no end in sight. Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Ukraine has been desperately trying to repel Vladimir Putin ’s forces.
Though it scored success in late 2022 by recapturing Russian-occupied Kherson – about 40 miles south-east of Mykolaiv – it has had little to celebrate of late. Last year’s counter-offensive failed to meet hopes and, amid dwindling ammunition supplies, it suffered a major blow earlier this month. Ukraine was forced to abandon Avdiivka, on the eastern front, marking Moscow’s biggest gain in nine months. And, all the while, the death toll mounts.
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More than 10,000 civilians have been killed since February 24, 2022, according to figures from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. At least 641 were killed or injured in the country in January alone, the group verified.
In Mykolaiv, the gutted regional administration building scars the landscape. It was hit in an attack in 2022 that claimed 38 lives. Yesterday, little Ukrainian flags with the names of the dead fluttered in the winter wind. Vanquished Russian armoured military vehicles lined the street nearby, a reminder of how this city, nearly encircled at the war’s start, survived Putin’s attack.
Opposite is the city administration where the mayor, Oleksandr Senkevich, works. He told us yesterday: “There is no place in Ukraine where it’s safe now, no place. Neither in the city of Mykolaiv nor in Lviv [near the Polish border] as we saw lately.”
The city’s civilian death toll stands at 160, including two children, since the full-scale invasion. The UK has been a major ally to Ukraine and is providing £2.5billion in military aid in 2024/5. And earlier this month EU leaders agreed a £42bn support package for the country.
But hampering Ukraine is the wait for £40bn of US aid held up in Washington. Thousands of miles away from the US capital, doting dad Andryi counts the cost of war.
Recalling the nearby explosion of February 7, the 42-year-old told us: “My wife was sleeping in the room downstairs. I was on the second floor... I was not sleeping. I rushed to my wife’s bedroom barefoot, over the shattered glass, just to save my child because my wife was shouting. I ran to save the most precious thing. [The] house was filled with black smoke, I couldn’t see anything as there was no light.
Oleksandr Sienkevych, Mayor of Mykolaiv (Tim Merry/Mirror Express)“Outside we saw a torch of fire and heard some sort of a whistle. I was disoriented and I couldn’t recognise whether it was a strike on our house and the fire started. I was disoriented, I couldn’t feel anything. My first [objective] was to grab my wife and daughter, and go down to the basement.”
Vlada, 28, added: “I don’t remember exactly what happened, it kind of… [got] blown away out of my mind. I remember an explosion and I felt like it was gas burning. I couldn’t see where to go, so I took my daughter and went down to the basement.”
A gas pipe blown open by the explosion caught fire in the street, Andryi explained. On his phone, he shows us the aftermath of the incident – a large crater in the road.
“If it fell on us, we would be dead,” he said. “Not only I got lucky, it’s the entire street that got lucky that it landed on a road but not in a house.”
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The Mirror's Simon Murphy at the Administration Building in the centre of Mykolaiv (Tim Merry/Mirror Express)Andryi presents pieces of what he says are missile shrapnel, one of which ended up in his home. His family is among those being helped financially by Save the Children, which was on the scene the same day.
Reflecting on the war, Andryi said: “People live without a future. We live by day.
“And there’s a very nice comparison. For example, you have a tooth that is aching and you know you have to go to the dentist to pull it out or to treat it in some other way. With this war, and with everything taking place in the country – and how long it has gone on – you don’t know when it’s going to end and what’s going to happen next.
“We cannot take any responsibility for a drunk Russian general who is just pushing a button.
“But I believe in the country, I believe in our allies and I believe that we are a civilised world and I believe everything is going to be all right.
For Andryi, his mission is clear.
“I’m only concerned about the baby, I don’t care about myself,” he said. “It’s God’s blessing that we had a baby at such a difficult time.”
He has a simple wish for her future. “I want that she grows happy and never has this test of war ever again,” he said.
To give to Save the Children’s emergency fund please visit savethechildren.org.uk/donate
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