Neighbourhood watch takes on a whole new meaning for Mykolaiv blast survivors

As he watched rescue workers pick their way through his friend’s bomb-wrecked apartment block, Oleksandr Mararash braced himself for what he knew could be a long, grim wait.

Six bodies had already been pulled from the wreckage of the five-storey building, which had taken a direct hit from a Russian missile at dawn the previous morning.

But two more of its residents were still missing, including his pal Valentin Latyncev, who had lived with his parents on the top floor.

“We know his mother and father died, but we haven’t yet found Valentin,” Mr Mararash, 34, told The Telegraph. “He didn’t stand a chance, though. Look at the building, it’s smashed beyond recognition.”

Wednesday morning’s missile attack, in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv, was one of the deadliest strikes on residential buildings thus far in the war.

CCTV footage from a neighbouring apartment captured the missile ploughing into the block’s roof, blasting the two upper floors to pieces and smashing the lens of the camera itself.

The attack was part of an intensified bombardment of Mykolaiv in recent weeks, with nine other missiles hitting port and infrastructure facilities in the city on Wednesday alone.

Because of the regular air raids, Mr Mararash and his friends had set up a messaging group on the Viber social media app on which they would check that each other was safe.

On it were what now appeared to be Valentin’s last ever words. He had messaged at 6.11am, just after the first missiles had fallen.

“How are you guys, everything okay?” he asked.

“At 6.20am, the missile hit the apartment, and we have not heard from Valentin since,” Mr Mararash said. “His phone is dead.”

In between waiting at the block of flats, Mr Mararash said, he had had to break the news to Valentin’s wife, who was living as a refugee in Germany with the couple’s child.

“You can imagine what kind of shock it has been for her. I don’t think she has even told the kid yet,” he added.

As Mr Mararash spoke, teams of exhausted firefighters used a cherry picker to clear debris from the building.

Artem Vahin, a fire brigade spokesman, said that because of the constant threat from missiles, staff had now been told to wear flak jackets when answering call-outs.

Two firefighters, he added, had been injured during the rescue by tumbling rubble, with one suffering a broken leg.

“We are very busy at the moment with all the missile strikes and it is very tough going,” he said.

Wednesday’s missile attack took place not far from another one that landed in an area of run-down workshops earlier this month. Residents of Mykolaiv say it appears to have targeted a factory that ceased to operate more than 20 years ago.

Whatever the intended target, Mr Mararash said it was no excuse to rain missiles into civilian areas.

“Vladimir Putin is a sick, crazy old man who thinks he’s God,” he said. “He’s just a piece of garbage.”