Agerpres special correspondent to Ukraine Cristian Lupascu reports:
A retired Ukrainian serviceman from Zhitomir, Ukraine, has recently had the saddest experience in his life. Vladimir, 50, was left homeless after the garrison he called home was destroyed in an air raid.
When the bomb was dropped from the plane, the man, who was an aviation mechanic, was in the house. He heard the explosion and then saw the building torn in two. He escaped unharmed, but remembers that two of his neighbours were unlucky and died instantly.
"I had lived in this building for almost 25 years. This is my window. I was here when the bombing took place. The plane was flying very low. After a second or two, an explosion followed. Suddenly the doors and windows exploded because of the blast. On the children's playground I found a piece of the bomb, its tail. The bomb weighed about 500 kilograms. The explosion was very strong and, as a result, the building was torn in two. Fortunately, the children were already evacuated. There were several families who suffered minor injuries, but two people died. A retired friend of mine, reserve major Vladimir Bilous, 67, died instantly. Another friend went outside to smoke and the blast killed him. One of the people went on a visit, and that saved her. A puppy in the dormitory died instantly. He was a beautiful hunting dog," says Vladimir.
The man remembers that the warning sirens went off shortly after the building was bombed as the plane flew too low and could not be detected by Ukrainian radars.
"Unfortunately, the siren did not start in time. It started off after the explosion. (...) The plane was flying very low, it was evening and it was not detected by radars," says the retired soldier.
The barrack was practically torn in two. The powerful explosion sent large pieces of construction flying along with many household goods. In the middle of the demolished building there is still a crater formed after the bomb fell.
The city of Jitomir has a population of about 250,000, and the homonymous region has over 1.2 million people. It is estimated that half of the population left the area after the war started, Agerpres informs.