“Shahed hits the very middle of our Odesa yard:” journalist Larysa Kuzora’s parents’ house damaged

In the journalist’s apartment, the entrance door and hallway were destroyed, and other rooms were also damaged: windows were broken, and the ceiling collapsed.

“A large funnel remained in the yard: here at 2:30 overnight into April 23, when the explosions in Odesa seemed to have ended, a belated russian Shahed flew in,” Larysa Kuzora, the editor-in-chief of special projects of MC.today, told the NUJU. “Two cars exploded, and a fire started. Absolutely all apartments were affected, including the apartment where my mother lives and where I am registered.”

Fortunately, the journalist’s mother herself went downstairs to the neighbors when the shelling began. Valentyna Kostiantynivna (mother’s patronymic name) was hit by an explosive wave, and a neighbor suffered a broken limb, but luckily everyone survived. The neighbor’s apartment was less damaged, so it is not known what would have happened if the woman had stayed at her place.

“Employees of the State Emergency Situations Service extinguished the fire. Neighbors who had the strength went outside; those who did not have the strength were taken out by the rescuers,” Larysa Kuzora said.

As a result of the shelling, many houses and commercial premises were damaged.

“Our house is located near the port. That’s why Shaheds fly there more often than over other districts of Odesa. [They make that] “buzzing” almost every night. And it was a matter of time to have one hit our house because even before that, we repaired the roof, which was cut by fragments, more than once,” says Larysa Kuzora.

According to the Odesa Regional Prosecutor’s Office, overnight into April 23, the armed forces of the russian federation carried out an air attack with unmanned aerial vehicles on Odesa. As a result of the attack, nine residents, including four children (a boy and a girl aged 5 and 9 months and two boys aged 9 and 12), were injured. Children and three adults with injuries of varying degrees of severity were taken to the hospital. A two-story residential building, commercial facilities, and cars were damaged. Windows were broken in residential buildings and buildings adjacent to the places where the debris fell.

NUJU Information Service