“The rocket hit the heart of the city”. Three years since the attack on Mykolaiv Regional State Administration

The shelling of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration building on March 29, 2022, was one of the largest crimes committed by the Russian occupation forces against the city's civilian population during the active phase of hostilities in southern Ukraine. This strike resulted in the largest number of casualties among Mykolaiv residents during the entire period of the full-scale war.

The shelled and bombed building became not only a witness to a war crime, but also a visual symbol of the destroyed but unconquered Mykolaiv. Like the hole that appeared in the building's facade, a hole appeared in the heart of the city and its residents - a void that neither time nor words can fill.

On the third anniversary of the tragedy, the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers honors the memory of the victims by publishing documentary footage from the scene. They were taken by Mykolaiv photographers Maria Gorshkova and Serhiy Melnychenko, who recorded another Russian war crime in history.‍

‍

The morning that began not with coffee, but with a rocket‍

Tuesday, March 29, 2022, 8:45 am. The city had not yet fully woken up, the streets had not yet been filled with the usual city noise, and workers were just starting their workday. At that moment, a Russian missile destroyed not only the central part of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration building, but also dozens of lives.

That day, Vitaliy Kim, the head of Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, said in a video message:‍

"They hit the building of the regional state administration. Half of the building was destroyed. They hit my office, the bastards. As for the victims... We walk under God. Most of them were saved by a miracle. It's 50 to 100 people."

‍

‍

However, as it later became known, not everyone managed to escape. As a result of this targeted missile strike, 37 people were killed and 34 others sustained injuries of varying severity. The list of the dead includes employees of the DIA, the regional council, the Economic Court, and military personnel from various units guarding the neighborhood.

The central section of the building collapsed from the ninth to the first floor. Rescuers worked around the clock for a week, clearing the rubble and searching for the bodies of the dead and those who may have survived under the debris.

The missile hit the fourth floor, but the destruction covered a third of the nine-story building. The rest of the administrative building remained in critical, emergency condition. It was a deliberate and cynical attack on the regional administration - a blow that was meant to paralyze the work of the authorities, demoralize residents, and sow fear.‍

‍

“We were getting into the car when the rocket flew right over our heads”‍

The head of the region recalled that morning with pain and confusion:‍

"I saw the rocket, it flew overhead. It flew into the center. We were just getting into the car. In two minutes we were there, we saw what was happening there."

‍

‍

Rescuers were the first to arrive at the site of the hit. One of them, Andriy Burlachenko from the State Emergency Service, recalls the horror he saw with his own eyes:‍

"After we arrived at our destination, we saw horror - the building was completely damaged, with one big hole left. There were stones, rubble, and debris lying around. There were people standing near the building with real horror in their eyes. We immediately started searching for the victims. We had to get people out of the rubble as quickly as possible - every minute could be crucial."‍

Serhiy Kovalenko, the commander of the second fire and rescue unit, described how the wounded were evacuated:‍

"We approached the window with stretchers. It was impossible to go through the central passage, so we transferred the wounded through the windows. The guys gave us people, put them on stretchers, and we carried them to the road, where ambulances were waiting. There was a ladder, we climbed over the lintel, sometimes we just jumped down - without fear and without hesitation."

‍

An attack on a civilian object is a war crime‍

The building of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration is an administrative, i.e. civilian, object, which, according to international humanitarian law, is protected during an armed conflict. Military law prohibits deliberate attacks on civilian targets unless they are used for military purposes.

In the case of the shelling of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration building, the Russian Federation did not provide any evidence that the object was a legitimate military target. The attack was carried out on a de facto peaceful object, where there were employees of the regional administration, civilian workers, as well as security guards - representatives of the territorial defense and military personnel who did not participate in hostilities.

‍

Who ordered the killings?‍

The Security Service of Ukraine has officially reported that the former commander of the Southern Military District of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, General Alexander Dvornikov, is responsible for this war crime. According to the evidence, it was he who ordered the missile attack on the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration.‍

"The enemy used a surface-to-surface cruise missile to carry out the air attack. It was launched from the Iskander tactical missile system, which was based in the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea,” the SBU said.‍

As a result of this strike, 36 people were killed (later it was clarified - 37), and 38 others were injured. In addition to the RSA building itself, the surrounding residential neighborhoods were damaged - apartment buildings, a children's art center, civilian cars, and small businesses were damaged. Dvornikov was served a notice of suspicion in absentia under Part 2 of Article 28, Part 2 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine - “violation of the laws and customs of war committed by prior conspiracy by a group of persons, which caused the death of people.” The work to bring him to justice is ongoing.

‍

The camera as witness and memory ‍

Documentary filmmaker Maria Horshkova says that that morning all the residents of her neighborhood woke up to a very strong explosion - the walls were shaking and the windows were rattling. She recalls that at first she could not understand where exactly the rocket hit, and admits that it was difficult to realize this. It was hard to accept the fact that the place she was used to, where she worked and filmed many reports, was destroyed.

‍

‍

“I used to visit the RSA a lot - I made reports, talked to employees. There was a park nearby - this place evoked many memories for many people. And it was very hard to realize that the city where you have lived all your life, the places where you walked and which evoke fond memories, were being destroyed. At the time, it was one of the first such blows, and people had not yet gotten used to it. After a while, the reaction to such tragedies became different - it was not as painful because it became part of everyday life. But in those months, people could not yet realize the scale of the tragedy. For several more days, I could see the light of the SES spotlights from my window as rescuers were clearing the rubble and looking for people. Every day I passed this place on my way to the volunteer headquarters.  The destroyed building, the constant work - you realize that there could be people you knew there, even if it was only a few times of communication.”

Maria was particularly impressed by the story of a girl who was looking for her mother: “I remember a story about a girl who was looking for her mother, an employee of the regional state administration. She asked everyone who might have seen her to report the news, hoping that her mother had simply gone out and was not answering her phone. But after a while, she was found under the rubble. This story really impressed me. I often think about this girl and her family. When I returned to that place later, there were already flowers in memory. Later, the memorial was changed to include flowers in honor of the fallen soldiers. At that time, 37 people were killed in the strike, and many were injured because it happened in the morning, when most of the workers were already at work.” Mariia is convinced that the Russians knew that people would be there and deliberately hit the RSA. “When I saw this building up close six months later, it seemed like time had stopped there - things, chairs, documents, everything was as it was at that moment. It felt like everyone who died was still there, in that time,” Maria recalls.

‍

‍

Memoirs of the photographer Serhiy Melnychenko:

Serhiy Melnychenko says that he took this tragedy with pain, like all other similar cases. According to him, even though this is his hometown, when similar arrivals took place in Dnipro, Vinnytsia, and Uman, it hurt equally. He believes that Russia is simply killing people, children, destroying cities and exterminating civilians.

“Of course, when it happens in your hometown, you feel differently. It was terrible. I remember the story of a friend - his aunt worked at the regional state administration and at that moment went to another wing to put the kettle on. This saved her life, because the attack hit the wing where she usually worked. As we watched the rubble being cleared, we kept hearing news about the dead - one victim, two, three... and so on until 37. It was a really terrible event that remains in my memory.”

Serhiy says that when he took the photos, he felt an inner duty to record this tragedy truthfully. The photographer admits that it was difficult - he walked through the rubble, among the scattered papers and documents. The wall calendar hanging in its place symbolized the moment when time stopped.

‍

‍

The photographer admits that he sometimes focused on details, such as iron beams that swayed in the wind and made sounds against the background of absolute silence. Only the wind added a sense of at least some life to this frozen space.

‍

‍

“It is very difficult to realize the tragedy when you are in such a place. And it is impossible to imagine what the people under the rubble, their relatives, friends and relatives were going through. This feeling of emptiness and pain remained for a long time,” Serhiy recalls.