The noise of the explosion was loud enough to be heard halfway down to the basement, startling families already deeply shaken by the early morning missile strikes, making parents hurry their children along the last few steps.
“Are they trying to kill us? What have we done to them?” Valentina Kostenko wanted to know. “That was very close, we are lucky to be here”, she said as she drew her little daughter closer. Her husband Anton, carrying their son, thought that the attack was “probably aimed at a government building… They are trying to destroy the official places, destroy our structures.”
The target on that occasion appeared to have been the GUR, defence intelligence, headquarters near the city centre. Details of casualties were not clear, but there was extensive damage to the building. The strikes were among a series targeting infrastructure including the city’s civil and military airport.
A little later a dozen MI-28 Russian helicopter-gunships raided Hostomel airfield on the outskirts of the capital, firing rounds of Ataka missiles and destroying a number of airplanes and setting hangars on fire.
While attacks continued from the air, Russian troops and armour, along with those of Belarus, were heading for Kiev on the ground after breaking through the border around 80 miles north of the city. The two countries had been conducting joint military exercises, which were supposed to end on the 20th. These, however, were extended and it was these troops who are now heading for the Ukrainian capital.
The air-strikes had started with a flurry after Vladimir Putin announced the start of his invasion of Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday morning.
He said a “special military operation” was needed “to defend people who have been victims of abuse and genocide from the Kiev regime”. The Russian president added that he did not want to occupy Ukraine, but he intended to “de-Nazify” the country. The Ukrainian armed forces needed to lay down their arms, otherwise they will be responsible for “possible bloodshed”.
Most of those who had gathered at the makeshift shelter in Yaroslava Val Street did not know about the simmering anger of the Russian president, which had erupted with such violent fury.
They did not know that the prospect of the country joining Nato would be viewed as an existential threat by the Kremlin. Or that Ukraine, in Mr Putin’s view, was turning “steadily into an antipode of Russia, an anti-Russia”.
Anton Kostenko, huddling in the basement with his young family said he had an interest in politics and foreign affairs, he had followed the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, but he had no idea that it would explode in such a lethal way.
“We have been hearing about this war for weeks now, from the Americans, the British, everyone,” said the 29-year-old architect. “But nothing happened, and we thought that international leaders would make sure that there was no fighting. But now this, how did this happen?”
Sitting on the floor alongside Mr Kostenko, 44-year-old Ihor Nazarenko had no doubt how this had come about: “It is about one man; an angry bitter man who wants to punish us because we will not accept what he wants. Putin is prepared to sacrifice lives, yes, including those of his soldiers because of his arrogance.
“All the [international] leaders have been trying to reason with him. But you cannot reason with a man like this; you need to stand up to him. The leaders failed to do that and now we have this here, in Kiev, in our capital.”
Fighting had been taking place across the country – in Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, Odessa. As well as attempts to gain territory; the operations, combined with the Russian advance from the north, would have the effect of isolating Kyiv.
One possible plan of Moscow, according to a number of international diplomatic and defence sources, is that having cut off the capital, Mr Putin would demand the regime change he has wanted – the resignation of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – and his replacement by someone more acceptable to Moscow.
It is about one man; an angry bitter man who wants to punish us because we will not accept what he wants
Mr Zelensky, in an address to the nation on Thursday morning, said the history of Ukraine has now changed forever and that Russia has “embarked on a path of evil”. The government imposed martial law with the President asking people to remain calm and stay at home.
Offices and shops in the capital remained empty, but the roads were soon thronged with families in cars heading out of the city.
Oleg Honcharuk, was leaving with his wife and three children for the west of the country. He had recently brought them back from his parents’ home to the city after deciding that warnings of impending strife were exaggerated.
“We have been hearing for weeks and weeks that there will be a big attack. That didn’t happen and so we decided, as a family, to live back in Kiev”, said Mr Honcharuk, a 37-year-old engineer. “But after what just happened here there is no way that we are going to stay here. It’s going to get even more dangerous.”
Women use their phone as they wait with bags and suitcases near Kiev-Pasazhyrskyi railway station
This map shows major cities in Ukraine as well as Moscow-backed separatist regions. As of early this week, rebels held only parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions highlighted
