Family of journalists injured during latest russian missile attack on downtown Chernihiv

Arsen Chepurnyi, a journalist for the Chernihiv online publication Chas Chernihivskyi, was injured on Saturday during the explosion of a Russian rocket that attacked the city center and the drama theater where a drone exhibition was taking place. As a result of the explosion, seven people, including a 6-year-old girl, were killed, and over 160 people were injured. Nearby houses were damaged. In particular, windows were broken in the apartment of Arsen Chepurnyi‘s father, Vasyl Chepurnyi, the editor of the newspaper Holos Ukrainy.

Vasyl Chepurnyi was returning home after church service (it was the Orthodox feast of the Transfiguration) when he heard above him the rustle of a rocket and a mushroom-like cloud that rose after the explosion. He called his relatives and ran home.

“The windows in the apartment were blown out, the frames on the balcony were damaged, and the blast wave bent the entrance door,” Vasyl Chepurnyi told NUJU. “They say the roof was also damaged. Currently, the police and a special commission are recording the consequences of the attack. When this is done, let’s get to the repair.”

Vasyl Chepurnyi‘s son Arsen was in the theater itself during the rocket explosion, covering the event that was taking place there.

“When the alert went off, and people went to the shelter, the cameraman Dmytro Falchevskyi and I got the last footage and also went to the shelter,” the journalist said in the NUJU comment. “We were on the stairs when it [the missile] “arrived.” The glass cut my hand. It also slightly injured my leg when he ran up the stairs to the shelter… Later, the police, medics, and rescuers came there. Medical aid was provided on the spot, and they were transferred to another shelter for some time because there was no certainty that there would not be a second attack.”

For what happened, Arsen will not blame anyone except the Russian aggressors. He says he did not go to the trauma center because he saw many injured and killed and understood that all the doctors in the city would be very busy very soon.

“At first, there was a rush of adrenaline; I wanted to run somewhere, help someone. Later, it [the rush] was replaced by a decline in strength. But now everything is okay,” says Arsen Chepurnyi. “It is very good that everything worked out for us, and it is a great sadness that other people were injured and killed; many were just walking near the park.”

NUJU Information Service