A Ukrainian family now living in British Columbia learned they lost everything they left behind in their homeland.
“I froze when I learned that my house was severely damaged, and my neighbor’s house was also destroyed,” Marko Zolotarov told Global News. “I just froze in shock, thinking this is unreal.”
A look at a before and after photo of Marko Zolotarov’s house in Ukraine where he lived with his wife and children.
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“There was a time when people lost their homes because of the occupation and I was preparing myself in a way because it could happen to me too.”
A Russian bomb targeting a hospital in Zaporizhia is believed to have burned down several houses in the old Zolotarov district, killing a 17-year-old boy.
“I was 17 when I came to Canada around that time and now he’s gone,” Zolotaroff said.
His neighbor, Jaroslav Hindko, was outside in the garden when he said he heard the missile. While training, he fell to the ground.
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His first wife and their children were inside the house at the time.
“She says that in one second the force pushed the windows and panels in and out of the house like a vacuum,” Olha Hendiko said.
Marko Zolotarov’s family now lives in British Columbia
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The bomb was a KAB-500KR, a common weapon developed by the Soviet Air Force in the 1970s.
The first one said that one of the missiles penetrated the side of their house, penetrated the refrigerator and settled on the other end of the wall.
Miraculously, Olha and her children survived the explosion unharmed.
While she said it was a traumatic incident, Zolotarov said the bombing severed his only childhood connection to Ukraine.
“When the house was destroyed, I felt like a part of me was destroyed because it was a part of me,” he said.
“That location, that beautiful house, those memories.”
He said he was grateful he did not lose a loved one.
“While war makes you insensitive to people dying, your heart breaks again and again.”
A look at the damage inside the house in Ukraine.
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