‘Are you alive?’: The reality of waking up to a warhead falling on your house

Half of Leonid Fatkulin’s home in the southern Osokorki suburb of Kyiv is now crumbling into a crater in his back garden.

Just after 9am this morning, he was woken up by a loud blast as the wreckage of a Russian warhead fell into his house.

“I was about to wake up and have a shower and shave. Then I heard a blast and at first, I didn’t understand what it was. I opened my eyes and saw the door was wide open and something had fallen,” says Leonid, who we found smoking a cigarette and drinking a coffee outside the remains of his house.

“The first thing I wanted to know is if my son is okay. I yelled out to him, ‘are you alive?’ He said’ ‘yes’, and then I calmed down.”

In one of the most extensive attacks since the early days of the war, Russia has launched a mass wave of missiles on cities across Ukraine.

The country’s air force says they intercepted 54 out of 69 rockets fired.

Officials claim that 16 of those missiles targeted Kyiv where three people were wounded by the falling debris, including a 14-year-old girl.

Despite the limited casualties, the message from Moscow is loud and clear.

This mass attack comes only three days after the Russian defence ministry announced that the rubble of a low-flying Ukrainian drone they shot down over critical Saratov airbase Engles-2, killed three of their military personnel.

This was the second time Moscow had declared the strategic site has been targeted by a Ukrainian drone in just three weeks.

Word of a retaliatory attack has been circulating for days. Only a few hours after the blasts, Kyiv’s residents were walking around their city as normal.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko told Sky News that the capital may be resilient, but its population is very angry.

“The Russians want to bring depression especially right now during Christmas and New Year. They want to bring us back to black times with no lighting and no heating. They must bring a depressed mood to everyone,” he said.

“Instead, Ukrainians are very angry and said, ‘Better we stay with no electricity and heating than ever give up’.”

Back in Osokorki, Leonid’s young neighbours gather to clean up the wreckage of his house. A young man yells over to him and his face lights up.

“They found the second row of my teeth. Now, I’ll be toothy,” Leonid says grinning after putting in the dentures plucked out of the rubble.

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His demeanour comes off as disillusioned yet saddened by the reality of the war he woke up to this morning.

“This is a crime against humanity, not only against me but against all people,” he says.

“This time I suffered but next time it will be someone else.”