Shock at image of Ukraine kitchen wrecked by attack

Images of a bright, family kitchen in Ukraine, which was exposed to the world when a Russian missile strike tore off its external wall, have caused shock and sadness on social media.

The apartment was home to well known boxing coach Mykhailo Korenovsky, who was killed in Saturday’s attack. His wife and children reportedly survived.

A video of Korenovsky celebrating a recent birthday with his family in the same flat has also been published.

The strike in Dnipro killed 40 people.

The victims included three children, with more than 30 people still unaccounted for on Monday evening.

The image is striking for the stark contrast between the normal and the abnormal; the everyday domesticity of the cosy kitchen is framed by the sudden and total devastation delivered by a Russian attack.

The modern-looking kitchen with bright yellow cupboards remained remarkably intact after the strike, despite the total destruction of its external wall.

A bowl of apples sits on the table, dishes lie next to the sink waiting to be washed and oven gloves still hang neatly from a line of hooks.

“Here people cooked, had kitchen conversations, celebrated holidays, laughed, argued,” Kyiv MP Zoya Yarosh wrote on Facebook.

She compared the destruction of the building to the fate of her country: “These are the wounds on the body of Ukraine. Wounds on our homes.”

On social media, many people highlighted the small details in the photograph, suggesting a family getting on with their life as best they could, despite the raging war.

“When I look at this kitchen all I see is the flat I grew up in, the flat my grandparents lived in, the flat my cousins lived in, because we all had two stools tucked under the kitchen table just like that,” wrote Ukrainian Alina on Twitter.

Before the missile strike, the kitchen seems to have been at the centre of a happy family moment – a child’s birthday party.

In a video published online and reposted by Ukraine’s armed forces, a young girl smiles as she is presented with a huge birthday cake, and blows out her four candles. The same yellow cupboards are clearly visible, as are the oven gloves and television on the wall.

Those in the video are believed to be Mykhailo Korenovsky’s family, who reportedly survived the strike, while the boxing coach did not.

It is not clear when the video was filmed, but it is a stark reminder of how suddenly war can destroy lives.

“Perhaps it was him [Korenovsky] who bought those apples for his family, left standing on the table after the building collapsed,” said BBC Russian journalist Liza Fokht. “Or perhaps it was him who left a plate in the sink – there’ll always be time to wash it later.”