Summary Lystopad said she recently had to travel to another part of Kyiv and had been “genuinely stressed” the whole way there.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian drone struck a school in Kyiv on Thursday, city officials said, as the Ukrainian capital endured another day of relentless aerial attacks.
Children and staff at the school were in shelters when the drone hit, Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said, and its warhead didn’t explode. No casualties were reported, but the building’s brick facade showed a large hole, revealing a staircase, and burn marks alongside smashed windows.
Kyiv has felt like a city under siege in recent weeks, with repeated air raid alerts, punctuated by loud explosions from drone and missile strikes. The onslaught aims to terrorize civilians, officials and analysts say, and break their will to resist 4½ years after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The strain is showing. Maryna Lystopad, 35, said her hair has started falling out due to the stress from escalating attacks and never knowing where the next attack will hit.
“It’s really horrible. I can’t take it anymore. I think, I think that soon we’re all going to leave. I’m really not doing well,” she told The Associated Press. “I’m constantly anxious. I can’t relax. I keep thinking that if something happens, if something hits, one of my relatives could be killed.”
Lystopad said she recently had to travel to another part of Kyiv and had been “genuinely stressed” the whole way there.
“I kept checking, like, whether anything was flying in, where it was going, where am I supposed to go? Where am I supposed to run?” she said.
Ukraine’s air defenses are stretched
The front line in eastern and southern Ukraine hasn’t seen major shifts since last year, but the country is struggling to fend off Russia’s intensified aerial attacks on cities that include ballistic missiles and high-flying jet-powered drones.
Reflecting the urgency of Ukraine’s plight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he held a conference call Thursday with senior military and government officials in charge of protecting infrastructure, as some areas fall behind on implementing previously agreed measures.
He said the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry will review agreements Ukraine has made with partner countries on supplying ammunition for air defenses and F-16 fighter jets, with an updated schedule of deliveries to be presented within 24 hours.
“It is important that we have additional missiles in October,” Zelenskyy said on social media.
