Radio Svoboda reporter says he pulled a child from a burning apartment after a loud blast that killed neighbors

Мар'ян Кушнірове, a reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Ukrainian service (Radio Svoboda), said he pulled a child from a burning apartment after a loud blast nearby.

"I heard a very loud explosion, without the sound of a drone's approach," Kushnirove said. He described seeing windows shatter and rushing to the scene with a medical tactical backpack he said he keeps on hand.

Kushnirove said he opened a door and found a child on a couch while the child's mother cried. "I pulled the child out of the apartment and handed her to neighbors," he said. Neighbors began to respond and assist, he added.

He said he tried to re-enter the building to help others but could not because the fire had spread quickly. "The stairs caught fire within seconds," Kushnirove said, describing a two-level apartment where people had been asleep on both floors.

"There were people there and they died," he said, referring to neighbors in the building. Kushnirove spoke in an emotional first-person account; there was no independent confirmation of the cause of the blast, the number of wounded or dead, or the exact timing from officials at the time of this recording.

The account underscores ongoing risks to civilians and the difficulty of rescue efforts when fires and structural damage follow explosive strikes. Further details, including official casualty and incident reports, were not available in the transcript.