It is a day and a half since a Russian jet-powered drone smashed into an ammunition dump in Myla, a village 15 miles outside central Kyiv. Volodymyr, 61, a security guard, leads visitors from his family’s badly damaged home, its roof blown off, back windows shattered, through the garden towards the impact site 300 metres away. The garden, like so many in Ukraine’s villages and suburbs, is a sizeable allotment.
But today the greenhouse is shattered, a vegetable patch is blackened and crisp underfoot. Several metres of grapevine have been destroyed. Even so, Volodymyr finds two surviving bunches to hand to the Guardian.
It is a remarkable moment of generosity, though his family now has no electricity and no water after Thursday night’s extended bombing. The death toll rose by one on Sunday, to 38, and four more people are still missing in an episode that has swiftly raised questions about why ammunition was stored so close to people’s homes. In the yard before the garden, Vira, 65, knows who is at fault.
There are people here, this is a village. You can’t keep something like that here,” she says. She and her son Serhii hid for hours in a small bunker by the side of the house waiting out what witnesses said were 30 or 50 explosions that went on for about six hours after the initial strike at 8pm.
Serhii says they had no idea ammunition was stored in their village. He is charging his phone from a car battery via a converter. It is all the power they have.
A missile shell from a Grad rocket launcher was found on their property once the explosions subsided, Serhii adds, as well as “several mines and cluster munitions”. They have been removed by the cleanup team, although a burnt-out box of bullets, freshly discovered in another part of the semi-collapsed ceiling, has not and sits by the front door awaiting a further collection. Volodymyr’s tour continues out back.
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