A woman pinned beneath concrete, a man with a badly broken leg, a child trapped under the rubble.
The aftermath of Thursday’s Russian drone and missile strike on Kyiv was grimly familiar: residents clawing through debris as rescuers arrived, against a backdrop of anguished cries and groans.
Among those who rushed to help was 19-year-old Vladislav Kalashnikov. Though his own flat had been torn apart in the blast, he ran to assist neighbours in a nearby block.
“I wasn’t frightened – I went straight to help,” he told Reuters outside the partly destroyed building on the eastern edge of Kyiv, where all but one of the at least 18 victims of the strikes across the city had been killed.
Footage filmed by the aspiring lawyer on his mobile phone showed a nightmarish scene of flames, twisted steel, shattered brickwork and broken glass.
Once he had checked on his family’s safety, Kalashnikov moved through the wreckage, where he came across a man lying helpless with a broken leg.
“He was screaming for help,” he recalled. “There was also a child crying for help. We helped the child first – she was trapped beneath the rubble.”
Kalashnikov, calm as he spoke, also described trying with others to pull free a woman with a severe head wound who was pinned under a concrete slab.
Explosions thundered in the distance as they worked, his video showed.
“We couldn’t lift the block,” he said quietly, lowering his eyes. It was not immediately clear if she had survived.
As he spoke, rescue workers carried away the dead in black body bags.
Kalashnikov said, like many Ukrainians, he had become accustomed to the increasingly frequent barrages that Russia which denies targeting civilians has launched against Kyiv and other cities.
Despite his close brush with death, he insisted he had no plans to leave Ukraine, even though the government this week lifted a ban on men aged 18 to 22 travelling abroad.
“I want to continue my studies,” he said. “My future is here.”
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China has announced plans to fully cover childbirth-related costs for families as authorities move to incentivise young couples to have more children.
The Taliban leadership in Afghanistan opted out of a major regional meeting held in Iran’s capital Tehran on Sunday.
Australia vowed stricter gun laws on Monday as it began mourning victims of its worst mass shooting in almost 30 years, in which police accused a father-and-son duo of killing 16 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
Oil prices are rising worldwide as investors assess supply risks linked to growing tensions between the United States and Venezuela after the former seized an oil tanker Skipper on 10 December, a move Caracas calls “international piracy”.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reiterated his offer to host Ukraine-Russia peace talks in Ankara, at his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The talks took place on the sidelines of the international Forum for Peace and Trust in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on Friday (12 December).
Russia’s human rights commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova, has said that Ukraine has not provided Moscow with a list of thousands of children it alleges were taken illegally to Russia, despite the issue being discussed during talks in Istanbul.
Iranian authorities have seized a foreign tanker carrying more than 6 million litres of smuggled fuel in the Sea of Oman, detaining all 18 crew members on board.
An explosive device found in a vehicle linked to one of the alleged attackers in Bondi shooting has been secured and removed according to Police. The incident left 12 people dead.
The latest round of clashes between Thailand and Cambodia has left 15 Thai soldiers dead and 270 others injured, Thailand’s Ministry of Defence spokesman Surasant Kongsiri said at a press conference on Saturday.
Oil prices are rising worldwide as investors assess supply risks linked to growing tensions between the United States and Venezuela after the former seized an oil tanker Skipper on 10 December, a move Caracas calls “international piracy”.
Syria has arrested five people suspected of having links to a deadly attack on a joint U.S.–Syrian convoy in the central town of Palmyra on Saturday, the country’s Interior Ministry said.
The head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, the foreign spy service known as MI6, has warned that Russia "remains an aggressive and expansionist threat", vowing sustained support for Ukraine and calling for greater use of technology to protect UK security.
Odesa residents remained without power for a third straight day on Monday (15 December) after a Russian missile and drone strike crippled the power grid on Saturday (13 December).
Fighting along the Thailand–Cambodia border has entered a fifth consecutive day, despite U.S. President Donald Trump claiming he had brokered a ceasefire between the two sides.
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