How a Russian airstrike ripped through people’s lives in Ukraine’s Poltava

Two days earlier, Maksym Havryliuk had been a student at a military institute in Poltava, in central Ukraine. Here — more than 100 miles from the front lines north of Kharkiv — his mom thought he would be safe. But then, on Tuesday, two ballistic missiles slammed into the campus less than a minute apart, killing 55 people and injuring 328.

By Thursday, the horror in Poltava had sharpened into rage. The search for survivors was over. Doctors at seven hospitals struggled to keep critically injured patients alive. Families sat on benches in front of the morgue, waiting to retrieve the bodies of their sons and daughters — some receiving only blown-apart remains.

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