A Russian jet-powered drone struck a warehouse in Myla, 15 miles outside central Kyiv, on Thursday night, leaving at least 38 dead by Sunday. The blast tore the roof off Volodymyr’s family home, shattered its back windows, and blackened the vegetable patch beside his garden.
“I’ve been coming back and forth for two days to see these ashes,” Volodymyr said after the strike. Thirty of the dead came from a care home close to the ammunition store, and four more people were still missing.
Myla home damage
Volodymyr, a security guard, led visitors through the wreckage of his badly damaged home and on to the impact site. He had no electricity and no water after Thursday night’s bombing, and he charged his phone from a car battery through a converter.
Witnesses said there were 30 or 50 explosions that went on for about six hours after the initial strike at 8pm. The emergency services’ clear-up work was halted at lunchtime because there was another drone threat above.
Residents of Myla speak
Vira said the people who set up the depot in the village were to blame. “Those who set up the depot here are to blame. There are people here, this is a village. You can’t keep something like that here,” she said in the yard before the garden.
Serhii said he and Vira hid for hours in a small bunker by the side of the house. “I thought it was humanitarian aid that was stored there,” Serhii said after the bombing, adding that a missile shell from a Grad rocket launcher was found on their property after the explosions subsided and that several mines and cluster munitions were found there too.
Ukraine intelligence inquiry
The location of the ammunition store is now subject of a criminal inquiry by Ukraine’s intelligence service. That inquiry will have to determine who placed the stock so close to homes, because residents are already describing a site that sat within 300 metres of them and left nearby land damaged as well as the house where Volodymyr keeps returning to the ashes.
Thirty of the dead were from a care home close to the ammunition store, and that detail is driving the demand for answers in Myla. The next step is inside that inquiry: whether the depot’s placement broke the rules that were supposed to keep ammunition away from people in the village.
