"The force of the blow was very terrible": residents of Zarichne told about the moment of the arrival on the 128th brigade on Zaporizhia

In the village of Zarichne, Zaporizhzhia region, where Russian troops attacked soldiers of the 128th separate mining and assault brigade of the Transcarpathian region, local residents sustained shrapnel wounds from an Iskander-M missile. Five private houses are beyond repair.

Almost 30 more were damaged, as well as apartment buildings, where about 90 apartments were hit. This was reported toRadio Liberty by Oleksandr Panchenko, a member of the local village council.

Four members of his family were injured in the Russian missile strike: his wife, a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature at a local school, her sister, and parents.

"The Iskander came down not far from the house of Panchenko's mother-in-law and father-in-law. He said that his relatives were in the yard, working on the farm. All of them were hit by shrapnel. His wife and her sister are in the most serious condition, they were operated on in a hospital in Zaporizhzhia.

"My wife suffered the most. She has broken, open comminuted fractures in her arms and legs. Her arm, thank God, was saved there [in the hospital], the vascular surgeons were good. A lot of blood was lost," the man said. The woman was primarily worried about how she would pass the courses and teach her children, Panchenko recalled.

He noted that the lives of the wounded were saved by tight bandages that prevented bleeding and the fact that a neighbor drove them to the hospital in his own car. It was faster than waiting for an ambulance.

Panchenko said that his father-in-law's and mother-in-law's house, summer kitchen and garage were completely destroyed. They decided to move the surviving items to their apartment because there was nothing to repair.

"And so, of course, it's horrible. When I ran there  I saw many corpses! You know the story, how many guys... Theforce of the impact was very scary. If they had been closer to the street, then...

Everyone who was on the street, in the open area, died. Because there was a high-powered shrapnel charge. Even a shrapnel came to my apartment, broke the window, and entered my apartment. If I had been standing, it could have killed me," said a local deputy about the enemy's attack on the Ukrainian military.

A resident of Zarichne, who was not named by the journalists, said that all the injured civilians were mostly from the street where the shell hit. One person was injured by a fragment at a great distance from the impact site. Residents of apartment buildings sustained glass cuts as windows were blown out. However, most of the injured residents of the village were doing something outside during the Russian shelling.

A woman said that the fragments were small, but they could have caused serious injuries. Two people were wounded in the groin area with very heavy blood loss. One of them, a woman, was hospitalized almost unconscious.

The other victim has a 15-year-old son who has been seriously ill for a long time and is constantly on a ventilator.

"After the impact, the power went out and the ventilator did not work, the child developed complications. At that time, the mother was raking leaves outside, and she was injured very badly. She is in intensive care," said the resident.

The teenager, who is completely dependent on outside help, was left to fend for himself. He is now  hospitalized in intensive care also, a family friend said.

As OBOZ.UA previously reported:

- On November 3, 2023, Russian troops attacked the personnel of the 128th Separate Guards Brigade with a rocket while they were lining up for an award ceremony. The brigade's press service said 19 soldiers were killed.

- On November 4, the head of the Zaporizhzhia Military District Administration, Yuriy Malashko, reported that nine civilians were wounded in the village of Zarichne: four men and five women.

- The circumstances of the tragedy are being established by the State Bureau of Investigation. On November 6, it became known that the commander of the 128th separate mining and assault brigade, Dmytro Lysiuk, was suspended from duty for the duration of the internal investigation.

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