LAst Weekend, Alla Shyrshonkova went on Bus 62 on a trip to his chalet near the Ukrainian city of Sumy. It was a hot spring day. “I thought I sat with friends, I was taking tea. The birds sang. Time was magnificent. It was so nice, ”she recalls.
“The bus was crowded. There was not a single free seat. People were standing. Some were going to the church for the twigs on Sunday. There were families with children. ”
As she reached the city center, she heard a big blow. Two minutes later – while the bus made its way in the Petropavlivska street – there was a second massive explosion. “The explosion was in front of me, so I didn’t see it. I only heard it. I was sitting behind the driver, with his back to him. When I heard the noise, I covered my head with my hands and I lowered. ”
After that, she said: “rocks, glass and everything piloted”. Shyrshonkova raised his head. The blood gushed “like a fountain” of his arm. “I saw fire cars and smoke. People were lying at my feet. I said to them, “Get up, get up. They were silent.
A conductor called the driver’s name – “Kolya” – but there was no answer. The passengers tried to leave the window. In the end, a teenager opened a door and he kept.
The double strike on Sumy was the only bloodiest moment this year in the murderous war of Russia against Ukraine. The ISKANDER ballistic missiles wore a fatal group of ammunition which released a wave of bus. Thirty-five people were killed.
Two of the victims buried last week were children, aged eleven and seven years old. Sumy residents left toys where they perished: a bear, a hippopotamus, a toy car and a football.
Shyrshonkova was one of the 129 people injured. Among them, 15 children. Some are seriously injured, hovering “between life and death”, as Tetyana, nurse of Sumy General Hospital said Observer. The first missile crashed into a university congress center, plunging through a glass atrium and a basement theater. The second transformed the city into a vision of hell, with bodies on the ground and a little girl crying and covered with blood.
War seems further than ever of a peaceful resolution. On Friday, Donald Trump reported that he was ready to “take a pass” to negotiate an agreement unless the two parties reach a “very soon” agreement.
More than a month ago, Ukraine accepted an American proposal for a 30-day ceasefire. Russia has not done so. Since then, he has demonstrated his bombing campaign on civilians and infrastructure, hitting Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipro.
As many predicted, Trump’s negotiation strategy was to promote Russia. He actually put an end to military aid to kyiv, while wrongly accusing Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Joe Biden for having “triggered” war.
No similar pressure was applied to Moscow. Trump minimized Sumy’s strike last weekend, calling it “error”. His special envoy, Steve Witkoff – who met European leaders Thursday – Kremlin Disinformation Perrocketes.
Speaking from the hospital, the survivors expressed their anger at the American president, accusing him of laziness and a confusing partisanry. “What happened in Sumy is terror, obviously – nothing else,” said Shyrshonkova. “Trump mainly supports Russia now.
“I want him to come to Ukraine and see what his beloved puylo (A term slang for Putin, which means bite). I want Trump to help us at the same level as Joe Biden. »»
Another injured survivor, Hennadii Smoliarov, 72, said that the Russians achieved a genocide. “They try to destroy all the Ukrainians. They hate us. Putin says we are not a people.
“They promote the concept of Russkiy Mir or “Russian world”. It means conquering everywhere. »»
Smoliarov said that when he studied in Moscow in the 1980s, he was called a KhokholA derogatory term for Ukrainians. “The prejudices are widespread,” he noted.
He was sitting on Bus 62, having gone to town to get eyes for his wife, Anna. After the first strike, the bus stopped outside the Institute of Applied Physics of the State University of Sumy. Shards of the shards of the second missile struck his lung and his head. “There was a strong shock wave. You couldn’t see inside. The smoke was like a fog, it was so thick.”
A woman was motionless at her feet. “I lost strength and collapsed inside the bus,” he recalls.
A volunteer caught Smoliarov by the collar of his brown leather jacket and dragged him on the sidewalk.
The explosion blew up the wooden doors and the glass of the 19th century Institute, sending bursts in its garden and flower beds. A quartz wall clock on the ground floor stopped at the time of the impact: 10:20 am and 40 seconds. On the other side of the road, a giant hole was searched in the economy painted with whites and the building of corporate teachers.
Another injured survivor, Viktor Voitenko, said that Sumy was in his fourth year of war. “We have had so many attacks, with Shahed drones and missiles,” he said. “Air raids do not stop.”
The city, a key military center, is located less than 20 miles from Russia. From there, the armed forces of Ukraine launched a surprise mini-invasion last August in the Kursk region close to Russia. They withdrew in March. The fighting continues in the villages along the border, where the Ukrainian troops hold a ribbon of Russian territory.
Vitintenko works at the Institute of Physics as a security guard. He was in the hall when the second Iskander dropped. A metal fragment struck him in the spine. “I couldn’t feel my legs. I called my wife and she reached me in five minutes. After that, the police took me to a safe place,” he said.
Lying in a hospital bed, Voitenko said he was not clear if he would work again: “It is in the hands of God. My operation went well. Doctors say they cannot guarantee anything.”
Aged 56, Vitenko previously worked as a manufacturer and as “liquidator” – a member of the cleaning crew sent to the Chornobyl nuclear power plant after the 1986 disaster.
The Kremlin, he said, was addicted to reckless imperialism. “Before the war, we lived well. We had everything. I have a beautiful wife, an 11 -year -old girl and two cars. ”
The bus driver, Mykola Leon – killed on Palm Sunday, with most of his passengers – was a distant parent, he said.
Shyrshonkova spoke to Observer from the neighboring hospital room. She put her survival to a class she attended in the 1950s as a church in the Soviet Union.
“We had civil defense lessons. The teachers told us that capitalism was bad. They also explained what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. We were taught to keep our mouth closed and cover our heads and eyes.
“When I heard the explosion on Sunday, it came back to me. An instinct took over,” she said.
Once she left the hospital, Shyrshonkova said she hoped to visit her Dacha. “I planted tomatoes and peppers on the balcony. I want to see them grow. “
Luke Harding is Invasion: Russia’s bloody war and Ukraine’s fight for survival, preselected for the Orwell priceis published by Guardian Faber
