"My child said goodbye to me": Kyiv family rescued from destroyed building – video

Ukrainian woman Oksana Siurkha, her husband Serhii and their 14-year-old daughter lived on the seventh floor of a high-rise in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district. On the morning of 17 June 2025, a Russian cruise missile struck their building, collapsing the entire section from the ground to the eighth floor.

Source: Journalist Anastasiia Ivantsiv’s report for Suspilne

Details: The air raid in Kyiv began on the evening of 16 June and lasted nearly nine hours. Russia deployed 175 drones and over 14 cruise missiles, with the Solomianskyi district facing heavy bombardment.

Oksana, Serhii and their daughter initially sought safety in an underpass near their home. At the time of the strike, they were sheltering in their apartment behind two load-bearing walls.

"There were about 10–12 explosions; we stopped counting. When they ended, we returned to the apartment. Then we saw ballistics [missiles - ed.] still in the air. We went down again, waited and came back up. At 03:40, my daughter said, ‘Mum, a little longer, and it’ll end; the warning is usually in place until 05:00’ But then a ‘Shahed’ [drone - ed.] arrived.

We hid in a corner behind two thick walls, preparing to head to the shelter again – then a missile whistled. It demolished everything. A flash, fire, glass shattered and the smell of dust and concrete filled the air. We tried to escape in whatever we were wearing. Then a second missile hit. We ran out, opened the door and there was nowhere to go," Oksana said.

The apartment and staircase had been destroyed, leaving the window as the only escape route.

"After the explosion, we stood upstairs, called every possible service, shouted to neighbours to call for help together, so people knew we were alive. But no one answered. There was silence," Oksana recalled.

A crane couldn’t reach the family immediately, as emergency workers reported it was too short.

"My child said goodbye to me. She said, ‘Mum, remember I love you so much.’ Everything around us was burning, slate exploding, and we were on the seventh floor with no way out. We’d either fall, burn, or be saved," Oksana recounted.

Emergency service workers eventually extracted Oksana, Serhii and their daughter through the window one by one. Oksana sustained a leg injury from glass but only noticed it on the ground during a medical examination. As fresh explosions began, she ordered her family to take shelter immediately.

"We thanked God that we were not under the rubble there, and not on the seventh floor. That’s the most important thing for me now," Oksana said.

The section of the building where the family lived was almost completely destroyed, and their apartment burned down completely. Journalist Anastasiia Ivantsiv has set up a fund to support Oksana and her family, open for public contributions.

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