Viktoriia Vasylieva, a wedding photographer, and her eight-year-old daughter returned to their home in Kyiv in recent weeks — enjoying the relative peace in a city that felt distant from the brutal artillery war raging in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
But the calm was shattered again this week in a deadly rocket attack. In a series of missile strikes across Ukraine from Kremenchuk to Odesa, Moscow sent a message: it is still willing to kill civilians, wherever they live. Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine became the latest city to face bombardment, in a barrage on Friday and early Saturday morning.
“I understand that remaining here can be dangerous,” said Vasylieva, who moved to Kyiv from Crimea years ago. “But I feel that this is my home.”