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Vera, the journalist of Radio Svoboda killed in Kiev

2022-04-29T16:47:28.443Z


He lived in the building hit by Russian missiles. 'He hated Putin' (ANSA)


 "A brilliant, kind person, a true professional".

On social media, colleagues remember Vera Girich, journalist of Radio Svoboda, Radio Libertà, who died in the Russian raid on Thursday evening that destroyed a 25-storey residential building in Podil, a historic and semi-central district of Kiev.

Fifty-five years old, she had been working since 2018 for the historic broadcaster of Radio Free Europe, financed by the United States, and - they still say about her - "she hated Putin".

But Putin ultimately killed her.

Girich had the misfortune of living on the second floor of a recently built building and therefore still mostly uninhabited.

The lifeless body was extracted from the rubble and taken away by rescuers in the late morning, more than 12 hours after the raid, in a silence broken only by the bulldozers already at work to remove the debris.

Together with her 10 people were injured, of which 4 were hospitalized.

The attack, the first in Kiev since mid-April and the closest to the city center since the start of the war, was condemned by the West.

Which he called it another war crime of the Russians for having targeted an inhabited neighborhood of the Ukrainian capital during the visit of the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, near his hotel and the British embassy still closed.

Russia has claimed responsibility for the launch of "high-precision missiles" on Kiev - and on Fastiv, a major railway hub about seventy kilometers west of the capital - claiming to have hit "the space company's missile plants. Artiom ", considering it a military target.

But the factory in question suffered less damage than expected: the glass shattered and the walls were blackened by the flames that developed immediately after the attack, but the structure is still standing, as found by ANSA on the place.

It is also difficult to think that in the heart of the town there was a missile factory, but rather a military equipment factory.

On the other hand, the first two floors of Vera's building, completely gutted, on the other side of Tatarska street, got the worst.

"We lived on the 14th floor", say Olya and Misha, a very young couple, both in jeans and a black duvet, at the foot of the building.

"We had just returned home, we closed the door and heard two explosions. We were lucky because our windows face the back. We left, but without panic," they assure.

"Because Russia wants to scare us, and we don't want to give them the win", adds Misha, calling Putin "an animal".

"And it's not a compliment to animals."

Eleonora, on the other hand, is afraid of it: "It's just the beginning, the situation will get worse here", she says, saying that in her house, four blocks ahead, "all the clocks have stopped".

Arriving at the scene, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said in a video that with those missiles "Putin raised the middle finger to the UN" and his mediation attempts for Mariupol.

Local authorities have re-launched the appeal to citizens, especially the elderly and women with children, not to return to Kiev because "the threat has increased".

But the capital of Ukraine resists and continues to tenaciously claim its normality, made up of scooters whizzing by and outdoor tables overlooking the spring.


Source: ansa

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