As communities continue to be torn apart by Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine, more images have emerged showing the tragic consequences of indiscriminate Russian missile strikes.
One of the most poignant, said to speak to the grief felt by many across the country today, depicts a small dog mourning the loss of its owners.
The heartbroken pup was found curled up in the rubble of his home in Lviv after its owners were killed in a Russian missile strike this morning.
Photos show her lying on cloth-covered bedding in the ruins of the family’s home, which was completely destroyed during the pre-dawn “revenge” strikes.
While people slept, Putin’s forces launched 81 missiles against targets across Ukraine, hitting 10 of the country’s 27 regions. While the missiles primarily targeted energy infrastructure, civilian locations were also hit, killing at least nine people.
This heartbroken dog was found today curled up in the rubble of his home in Ukraine after his owners were killed this morning in a Russian missile strike across the country.
The dog was found in a village in the Zolochevsky district of the Lviv region. A second photo (pictured) showed a girl wrapping some cloth around the dog before carrying him to safety near the rubble of the destroyed house
Three men and two women were killed in the Lviv region after a rocket hit a residential area – the first deaths in the far western city in many months due to Ukraine’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
It was there, in a village in the Zolochevsky district, that the wrecked dog was discovered by the locals.
Photos and video showed the small dog, who appears to be a Jack Russell, curled up in a ball on what appears to be his owners’ comforter and sheets.
Debris, including stones and rubble, surround the bedding on which it lies. With head and ears drooping and tail tucked under, the pup is clearly distraught.
Fortunately, a second shot of the scene shows a young girl leaning in to pick up the frightened animal and carry it to safety. She is seen carefully wrapping cloth around the dog, perhaps to protect it from any injury.
This second photo better shows the destruction of the house.
It shows that the dog was sitting on top of a large pile of rubble, and that the building behind it was completely blown apart by the Russian missile.
Twisted metal and broken wooden beams show that the building’s structure gave way during the blast, causing much of it to collapse.
One of the walls of the building has completely collapsed and if you look through the building, it is clear that other walls are not stable at all. In fact, it no longer looks like a building at all, but an abandoned building site.
The fate of the little dog was not immediately clear. A video showing the dog walking over the rubble suggested that one of its legs may have been injured.
Many Ukrainians took to Twitter to share the photo of the dog curled up in the rubble, pointing to the death of his family as one of many examples of Russian atrocities committed in Ukraine since Putin launched his invasion in February 2022.
Moscow said the attacks were in response to a border raid earlier this month, citing claims that Ukrainian nationalists invaded the southern Bryansk region and killed two civilians, which Kiev dismissed as a provocation by the Kremlin.
Pictured: Local residents sift through the rubble of a destroyed house at the site of the rocket attack in Lviv on Thursday
Police and local residents carry an unidentified body after a Russian attack in the village of Velyka Vilshanytsia, some 50 kilometers from Lviv, on March 9
Three men and two women were killed in the Lviv region after a rocket hit a residential area – the first death in the far western city in many months following Ukraine’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine said it shot down nearly half of the missiles launched by Russia in at least 10 regions as fighting raged in eastern Bakhmut.
The deaths of the dog’s owners were the first civilian casualties in a long time. They were among the five killed in Lviv.
The strikes also killed three people in Kharkiv and left Ukraine’s second-largest city – in the northeast – without power, water or heating. A ninth man, who was 34, was killed in the eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk, local authorities said.
“The enemy has fired 81 missiles in an attempt to intimidate the Ukrainians again and return to their miserable tactics,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.