Nights of terror in a city under attack

The missiles reach Zaporizhzhia when "people's dreams are at their deepest", says Oleksandr Starukh.

- Daniel Boffey

The regional governor of this south-eastern region of Ukraine since 2020, Starukh, 49, took the call from his bed at 5.08 am on the morning of 24 February, when one of the first missiles of the Russian invasion had hit a local air defence system. Nearly eight months later he is still taking the dawn calls.

The Russians generally strike, he says, at 2 am, 4 am, and 6 am.

The latest raid out of the dark took place just a few hours earlier, when 10 S-300 missiles and four Iranian-made Shahed-136 kamikaze drones crashed into the suburbs of the region's eponymous capital at 5.30 am on Saturday.

This time the missiles were targeted - albeit poorly - at two key electricity substations, while the drones hit the seaport, destroying a civilian boat but little more.

At one of the missile blast sites that is accessible, there are burnt-out cars, smashed windows, and traumatised children and elderly couples. But no one has died. It is a good morning.

The people of Zaporizhzhia have not been so fortunate of late.

In the past two weeks, 70 civilians have been killed in the night-time terrors unleashed by Vladimir Putin's war.

Walking by one devastated highrise apartment block in the northwest city suburb of Osypenkivs'kyy 'Zhytlomasyv, Bogdan Govelov, 23, wearing heavy bandages around his head, and his mother Olga, 46, can put a face and story to those numbers. At 2.30 am last Sunday, their world was ruined.