MALIN / UKRAINE (Nettavisen): We meet him at the kiosk at the railway station in Malin, which is two hours northwest of Kyiv.
On Friday morning – the day before Nettavisen visits the scene – reports surfaced that Malin had been hit by several missiles, and local authorities reported several injuries at the railway station.
Jean points to the roof of the kiosk, which bulges down with loose planks. He then leads us out into the garden behind the kiosk, where he was when the first rocket hit.
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Second birthday
– I was standing here smoking a cigarette. Then I heard a loud bang, before I was pushed over by the shock wave.
He gestures to fall into the doorway, and lands on the floor inside the kiosk.
– It saved my life, because the splinters came flying into the wall right afterwards.
Jean shows the splinters and the missile part that he picked up from the backyard after the missile attack ended.
– We say it was my second birthday. I could have died, but I survived.
– Are you more aware of the threat from missiles now?
He shrugs.
– It can come anywhere, anytime.
Around the railway station, the clean-up work is already underway, and life seems to be back to normal for people in the area. Windows are being replaced, and construction workers are throwing broken roof tiles into a pile by the station building. Passers-by look curiously into the square, and people cycle and walk across the train crossing – on their way to work or school.
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Nevertheless, the station site testifies to a dramatic and targeted attack by the three Russian missiles. A deep crater cuts through one of the railway tracks, and the explosion has multiplied a parked freight car.
Gravel, metal shards and missile images are strewn all over the place, and the benches on the platform have been blown to pieces.
Won with the plane alarm
Life in Malin has in recent weeks been peaceful and safe, describes Oleksander, who lives with his wife and dog right by the railway – about 400 meters from the station.
– During the invasion, the front line was about 20 kilometers from here, and we heard constant bangs from the fighting.
But when Russian forces withdrew from the Kyiv region at the end of March, Oleksander believed that peace had returned to Malin.
– Everything here was relaxed. We heard the plane alarms regularly, but no one cared about them.
The same alarm sounded over the city on Friday morning, but this time it carried on a dramatic warning. 15 minutes after the alarm came the first bang.
– We live on the second floor, and saw the smoke rise from the station. Our dog was terrified, and it pep and hid under the bed. I asked my wife to hide under the stairs, as it is the safest place in the house.
Oleksander drove out to see if anyone needed help, but when he arrived at the railway, soldiers were already in place to secure the area.
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Ukraine is no stranger to Russian missile attacks on infrastructure and train stations. On April 25, five railway stations in central and western Ukraine had been attacked in just one hour. On April 9, a missile killed 59 people at the Kramatorsk railway station in the east of the country.
Officially, only three people were injured in the attack on the station in Malin. One of these was the station worker Serhii, who was also at work on Friday morning.
Just finished cleaning up
– I had just cleared the courtyard in front of our workshop, says Serhii, while he points to gravel, pieces of plank and metal strewn around in front of the building.
– When the boss came to work afterwards, he said that I could just leave it at that, he laughs.
Serhii shows us holes and damage to the locomotive he was standing by when it crashed. The splinters had flown through both a freight car and a house before hitting the machine behind Serhii. Still, they had enough speed to go straight through the metal on the locomotive. Luckily, Serhii suffered only minor injuries to his nose, forehead, and ear.
– The ambulance came right afterwards, but I was fine, says Serhii.
Here it slams when the Russians attack the Dnieper bridge – which is full of cars – earlier in the war:
– Hit weapon delivery
On Saturday morning, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that they had destroyed a supply of Western weapons and other military equipment to Ukraine. According to the Russians, they used “Calibr” missiles fired from the sea to destroy the weapons delivery that was at the train station.
– There was only a city train full of civilians parked here just before the missile attack. But thank God it went on before it slammed, says Serhii.
While Nettavisen is at the station, more and more workers are appearing to help with the clean-up. A mother with three children walks calmly along the train tracks, clearly unaffected by the destruction they pass.
A siren howls again in the distance. The aircraft alarm warns of a possible, imminent danger, similar to the minutes before the attack yesterday. But for the inhabitants of Malin, who have lived surrounded by war for several months, the clean-up continues at the same pace.
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