Widow describes surviving missile attack that destroyed her Ukrainian home

The Russian missileturned Vera Kosolopenko's small home into a fiery pyre thatconsumed the Bible and all of the other precious mementos thatshe cherished of her late husband.

"I have lost everything that connected me to him,"she wepton Saturday as she stood by the smoldering remains of the housedestroyed by the missile a day earlier. "All I have left is theportrait engraved on his gravestone."

The diminutive 67-year-old widow, who lives in the northeastern village Bezruky,is lucky to be alive.

She and two friends were drinking tea inside the house whenthe missile slammed into the roof.

"It was so quick," she said."It was terrifying."

Villagers said the missile was one of five that in quicksuccession struck the leafy hamlet that sits 26 kilometresnorth ofKharkiv, close to where Ukrainian troops have driven Russianforces that tried to overrun the country's second-largest cityin Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion.

Villagehit with shellfire but not occupied

The Russians did not occupy Bezruky, located only 17 kilometresfromthe Russian border. But they occasionally sent vehicles to patrol itsnarrow dirt tracks before their forces were pushed back by thenearly two-week-old Ukrainian counteroffensive, villagers said.

Since the war began, Bezruky has endured near-constantshellfire that has destroyed or damaged many of the homes.Rocket and bomb craters dot its lanes and the rutted gravel roadleading to the village, an occasional trench and bunker visiblein the trees lining its verges.

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The two armies were fighting artillery duels during the visit byReuters. Loud, throaty booms came from nearby Ukrainian guns;muffled thuds marked distant Russian positions that sent severalsouth-bound shells whistling directly overhead.

Countless Ukrainian villages such as Bezruky have beenshattered by the invasion that nuclear-armed Russia claims itwas forced to launch to eradicate a threat that Ukraine posed toits security.

Ukraine and its foreign supporters say thousands of peoplehave died in the Kremlin's unprovoked war of aggression that hasuprooted millions of others and left cities and towns in ruins.

Kosolopenko, a mother of five who hails from thenortheastern city of Sumy, moved in 2001 with her late husbandto the village, where he had relatives. He died two years ago.

There has been no power or bottled gas since the warerupted. She has mostly lived on humanitarian aid and eggs provided by a few chickens, which she cooks in her backyard over afire lit under a makeshift oven of several bricks and metalsheets.

The missile, Kosolopenko said, fell at 9 a.m. on Friday. Itset her roof ablaze in a shower of flaming shards that ignited awooden storeroom in her narrow backyard.

"We heard a huge explosion when it landed and all of thewindows shattered,"she said.

As a second rocket struck nearby, she and her friends fledinto a brick-lined cellar dug on the side of her house.

Kosolopenko"took her tea with her, and I grabbed a plasticbag with a book in it, and we ran to the cellar,"said herfriend, Alla Bazarnaya, 40, of Kharkiv.

Bazarnaya said she moved in with Kosolopenko in Januaryafter the pair became friends in a hospital in Kharkiv where shewas being treated for a stroke.

"The most important thing is that I felt I was spared by Godand that we had to get away into the cellar,"Bazarnaya said.

The roof, the second floor and the storeroom were on fire when the pair emerged.

Neighbours triedto extinguish fire with buckets of water

Kosolopenko said she called a nearby fire department asneighbours wielding water-filled buckets and other containersrushed to her home. They were unable to extinguish the flames.

"The firefighters answered that there was shelling, and theycould not get here,"she said. "They did not get here until sixhours later. If they had made it earlier, they could have putout the fire on the second floor and saved the ground floor."

The flames reduced her house and storeroom to fire-blackenedshells, leaving the backyard carpeted with charred rubble andash. Only cinderblock and brick walls were left standing.

Kosolopenko said she lost everything, including the familyphotographs and the bible that had belonged to her husband'sfather.

"This is so painful for me,"she wept. "I don't know how Iwill rebuild this house. I loved this place."