Constant plane attacks and barrages overhead

I am Valerii Kovinko, a disability pensioner. I built the house and had a bad fall, breaking both legs.

Planes flew in from the north, from Belarus. On the first day, they bombed the checkpoint, and we saw two planes come in and drop bombs. Then they flew in two at a time, only at night. From the fifth to the sixth of March, planes flew again, but not in the usual way — one, second, and third bombardment. I went outside to see if any house had been hit. At this moment, an enemy plane arrived from the direction of Irpin and fired a rocket directly over the neighbor’s house. It ended up at the crossroads and hit the KLO gas station.

My house was left without windows; all the windows flew out. The blast wave was from all sides, carrying everything away, and there was a lot of debris. Then, in my yard, I found fuses from a rocket, fragments of mines, many things ... Gifts for a keepsake from the barbarians.

When there were powerful attacks, we went down to the cellar. The walls in the cellar are robust, made of roadbeds. There I put a cot and took blankets, sheets, and two barrels of drinking water. We prepared to sit there for a long time, knowing it would not end in a week or two. And when it became unbearable to stay, and the Terrorist Defense workers reported that the Ignatovsky bridge had been opened and they would evacuate people, we decided to go. We didn’t take anything from the clothes: we left wearing what we had on. We got into the car, drove to the intersection, stood, crossed ourselves, pressed the gas pedal to the floor, flew through the intersection, and reached Territory Defense people. Then, it became calmer there. I took my family for evacuation to the Vinnytsia region.

As a result of the shellings, several houses of my neighbors were almost completely destroyed and uninhabitable. A mine hit the gas boiler in one of the houses, and the kitchen caught fire and burned for four days. And all because there were no people, there was no one to extinguish it, and as a result, the whole house burned out. No place, no cellar — nothing left.

Another neighbor’s house was hit by rocket debris. The house burned down; in addition, from the blast wave, the wall moved five centimeters to the side. The house cannot be restored, and it must be demolished. Ivankhniuk Pavlo Vasylovych lived in this house with his wife. They are pensioners. He is from Chornobyl, and such misfortune happened.

The Russians brought a lot of trouble... What do I think of them? I don’t believe this is a nation — it’s some kind of mordva [ethnic slur meaning savages], people from the forest. I don’t think it’s a civilized country. They are barbarians!

Now Valerii Kovinko lives in Stoianka and takes care of the destroyed houses of his neighbors.