A Ukrainian family now living in BC has learned that they have lost everything they have left in their homeland.
“I was shocked when I heard that my house was destroyed, destroyed as well as my neighbor’s,” Marko Zolotarov told Global News. “I just panicked, I think this is not true.”
Viewing a front and back photo of Marko Zolotarov’s home in Ukraine where he lives with his wife and children.
Provided in Global News
“There was (a) time when people lost their houses because of work and I was somehow preparing myself that it could happen to me.”
It is believed that a Russian bomb aimed at a hospital in Zaporizhzhia set fire to several houses in the Zolotarov area, killing a 17-year-old boy.
“I was 17 years old when I came to Canada then and he’s gone now,” Zolotarov said.
His neighbor, Yaroslav Hndeko, was outside in the garden when he said he heard an arrow. As trained, he fell to the ground.
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His wife Olha and their children were inside the home at the time.
“He says that in one second the soldiers pushed the windows and went inside and outside the house like a vacuum,” said Olha Hndeko.
Marko Zolotarov’s family now lives in BC
Provided in Global News
The bomb was the KAB-500KR, a standard weapon developed by the Soviet Air Force in the 1970s.
Olha said another arrow went through the side of their house, pierced the refrigerator and lodged in another part of the wall.
Miraculously, Olha and her children survived the explosion unscathed.
Although he said it was a traumatic experience, Zolotarov said the bombing severed his childhood bond with Ukraine.
“When the house collapsed, it was as if a part of me collapsed because it was a part of me,” he said.
“That place, that beautiful house, those memories.”
He said he was thankful that he did not lose someone he loved.
“While war makes you not wish for people’s death, your heart breaks again and again.”
Looking at the damage inside the home in Ukraine.
Provided in Global News
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