"I thought I might die right now": journalist Paplauskaite tells details of Russian attack on Kherson train station
Kyiv • UNN
Journalist Maricka Paplauskaite talks about the Russian attack on the Kherson railway station, which resulted in casualties and destruction.
The editor-in-chief Marichka Paplauskaite told the details of the Russian attack on the train station in Kherson, where she was waiting for a flight to Kyiv. She wrote about it on her Facebook page, UNN reports.
Details
According to the editor, she arrived in Kherson in the morning to talk to the station manager, Ms. Alla, whom she will write about in the book. She said that she had to leave Kherson in the evening.
Paplauskaite wrote that the Russians attacked the Kherson train station 45 minutes before the return train to Kyiv was due to depart.
We ran to the shelter when the first hit occurred. I have never heard such a loud explosion before: the basement ceiling was falling down, the walls were moving. The passengers also managed to hide in the basement. And we all sat there together for the next hour and a half and counted the next arrivals. Two policemen who were injured by debris when they were helping passengers to hide were bandaged. There was also a foreign volunteer, apparently with a broken rib, but he asked to be ignored and was just breathing heavily, dripping with sweat. Later, the medics helped him as best they could. One policeman, whom I did not see, unfortunately, died
The girl admitted that for the first time during the great war she thought that she might die right now. She was saved from these thoughts only by a small kitten, a lop-eared Lyalya, who was given to the station manager as a gift for St. Nicholas Day. She took care of the kitten while the owner made difficult decisions about what to do with the people and when it would be safe for them to leave the shelter.
"We didn't know what was up there, but we suspected it was bad. When it calmed down a bit, someone went to reconnoiter. The news was disappointing - the station was smashed, not a single window was left standing, all the cars and the locomotive were destroyed. "Buses will come to pick you up and take you to Mykolaiv," the passengers were told," the journalist added.
She said that half an hour later people were allowed to go upstairs.
"And then it hit me. Maybe it was because I had to say goodbye to my kitten, or because I saw the room littered with glass that I had been in literally 30 seconds before the explosion, or because of the pool of blood at the entrance to the station - where I had stood several times during the day, but when we got on the bus and the lights were turned off in the cabin, I sat down on the dirty floor and burst into tears. My colleagues from UZ wrote to me, and I wrote back: "Wait, I'm crying," the girl added.
She admitted that for the first time she felt very vividly what it was like to be a target.
"And our task is to resist with dignity and not let them destroy us. And also to take care of each other and not to fight among ourselves, remembering that we have one enemy, and he is outside," the journalist shares her thoughts.
Recall
Yesterday, Russians attacked Kherson's railway station and an evacuation train. A police lieutenant from Kirovohrad region was killed in the shelling, and two more police officers were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds. Two civilians were also injured. Ukrzaliznytsia said that despite yesterday's shelling of the Kherson railway station by Russians, all trains are arriving in the city as scheduled.
