A team of bomb disposal experts scours the streets of Kharkov for remnants of Russian rockets, after this city, the second largest in Ukraine, suffered heavy bombardment.
The city, located a dozen kilometers from the Russian border, suffered significant damage in the first days of the invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Though kyiv managed to retain control of the city, it still comes under daily attack, with bomb disposal experts constantly called in to remove remnants of Russian ordnance.
“We get more than 50 calls a day,” says Igor, the lieutenant colonel in charge of the team that removes explosive remnants from the streets of Kharkov.
“On Wednesday we received 82 calls,” he told AFP.
A Ukrainian serviceman walks next to remains of a Russian Tochka U ballistic missile, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, in this handout picture released April 23, 2022. Press service of the Ukrainian Ground Forces/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY.
Residential districts in northeast Kharkiv are hit daily by attacks that can occur at any time of the day or night and are often deadly.
On Thursday, his first job was at a school.
Debris and a hole in the roof
In an office on the first floor, sunlight penetrated through a hole opened in the ceiling by a rocket with a diameter of more than one meter. The windows are broken and a pile of rubble covers the floor.
“There was shelling in the neighborhood and it hit the roof,” said a woman who took them to the school.
“We were very scared, we didn’t know if it had exploded or not,” he added.
Making their way through the rubble, they find nothing. But outside they detect a fragment of the rocket.
A building totally destroyed by Russian fire in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo: EFE
Just 300 meters away, they find another piece, the queue sticking out from the concrete of Soviet-era buildings.
One of the workers tries to pull it out but the metal tube won’t budge, so they use a shovel to dig it loose.
Soviet era weapons
They identify him as the remains of a shell fired by a Soviet rocket launcher BM21 Grad, which has a range of 45 kilometers and is capable of firing 40 rounds in a row.
Their next task is on an 11th floor where they use a small ladder to reach the roof of a building.
From there they overlook Kharkov and can see a forest to the northeast from where Russian soldiers are bombing the city.
The front line is less than five kilometers away.
In the ceiling there is a huge hole, through which they must go down in search of the remains of the rocket.
Like the rest of the charred metal fragments they have collected during the day, they load it into their 4×4 vehicle.
Outside, a man approaches to hand them a piece of metal.
“For the next best thing, he calls us and we come to look for him,” one of the experts tells him.
They immediately go to the east of the city, near the road that has become a no man’s land between the two sides.
A car hit by a Russian bombing in the city of Kharkov, days ago. Photo: REUTERS
There is a five-story building there that was hit and whose cement facade was punctured and has a blackened crater between the second and third floors.
A missile in the bathroom
inside they find a long fragment of a Grad rocket embedded in the bathroom from an apartment on the first floor, where a woman named Antonina lives who was outside when she fell.
“When I got home everything was destroyed,” he told AFP.
“It was terrifying,” he added.
During the three hours of work, the pounding of Ukrainian artillery in response to Russian rocket attacks was present as background noise.
On the same day, one person was killed and two others were injured in an attack in northeast Kharkov, just like the day before.
Fuente: AFP
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