KYIV – At least two people were killed and 12 others injured when a shell hit a residential building in Kyiv in the early hours of Monday, March 14, as fighting raged around the Ukrainian capital with Russian forces attacking.

It is an eight-story building in the Obolon district in northern Kyiv, which was targeted by Russian forces, resulting in a fire, which was brought under control by the Fire Department.

Greek expatriate Tassos Tsiamis reported to The National Herald from the scene where the apartment building was completely destroyed, as shown in the shocking images he shared.

“My house is exactly 100 meters from where we are. I’m really shocked. The pictures are scary. There is almost nothing left of the apartment building. The apartment building is destroyed. It is a building that has been almost completely demolished. Fortunately we were in the center and not here. The catastrophe is really complete,” he said, adding that three people had been admitted to hospital and nine had received first aid on the spot. He also noted that this is one of the most central parts of the Ukrainian capital.

In the early hours of Tuesday, March 15, at least another two people were killed and 40 injured when a shell hit another residential building in Kyiv as Ukrainian forces tried to repel a series of attacks by Russian forces.

The nine-story building in the Svetosena district on the western outskirts of Kiev was targeted by Russian forces at 4 AM, resulting in a fire that for many hours the Ukrainian fire department could not control.

Tsiamis spoke with TNH and shared the relevant video, available on TNH’s website, noting that this apartment building was also in ruins.

“We are in western Kyiv. At around 4 in the morning, Russian forces hit this building, killing two people and injuring more than 40 people. The injured have been taken to hospitals in the surrounding areas. The pictures are scary. There is almost nothing left of the apartment building. The apartment building is demolished. It is a building that has been almost completely demolished. Truly a total catastrophe,” he stated characteristically while he added that the rocket “exploded” at the entrance of the apartment building.

Residents of the area speak to The National Herald

Three Ukrainian citizens described the tragic event to Tsiamis who shared their eyewitness accounts with TNH. Specifically, they reported that they live in the next apartment building and at the time of the explosion they had the feeling that the shell exploded inside their own building. “It was scary. In our sleep we heard the explosion and thought it happened in our own building. Two people were killed and more than 40 were injured. We were very scared,” the Ukrainian women told TNH.

The explosions continue

Several powerful explosions were heard in the early hours of Monday in Kyiv, followed by visible columns of black smoke in the sky, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported, as the Russian army intensified its attack on Ukrainian cities in recent days. At around 6 AM local time and Greek time at least three loud explosions were heard in the western part of Kiev, according to Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA).

Many columns of thick, black smoke appeared in the sky, as on Tuesday when the Russian army bombed apartment buildings in the Ukrainian capital, killing at least four people. Other explosions were heard early in the morning in Kyiv. At present, local authorities have not announced a casualty report, while journalists cannot reach Kyiv, after the mayor of the Ukrainian capital Vitali Klitschko announced a 35-hour traffic ban on Tuesday, March 15, which went into effect on Tuesday at 8 PM.

According to a report by ANA-MPA, the emergency services in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine announced on March 16 that at least 500 residents of the city of the same name have been killed since the Russian invasion began on February 24.

Meanwhile, Vadim Denishenko, an adviser to the Interior Ministry, said that about 20,000 civilians had so far managed to leave Mariupol in private vehicles. Residents of Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of ​​Azov, remain trapped by Russian bombardment for two weeks without running water, electricity, or heat. At least 200,000 are in urgent need of evacuation, according to estimates by Ukrainian officials earlier this week.