A Ukrainian woman who heard explosions near her apartment stepped outside to find her father’s dead body on the sidewalk

• A Ukrainian woman found her father’s dead body right outside her apartment in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
• Yana Bachek heard the sound of explosions outside her home in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
• When she went outside, she found an ambulance crew standing over her father’s dead body.

A woman who heard explosions outside her apartment building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Mondy went outside and discovered her dead father’s body on the street. 

The father, 79-year-old Victor Gubarev, had been killed by a shell fragment that landed on his block, Reuters reported. Gubarev had been on his way home with bread when he made contact with the shell fragment. 

Gubarev’s daughter, Yana Bachek, heard the shell fragment exploding. 

“I remember just the explosion,” she said, according to Reuters. “I just returned from shopping and crazy explosions, noise.”

At the time of the explosion, Bachek, an English teacher, had been preparing for class. Her mother, at that moment, had called her and reminded her that her father was outside getting bread. 

“I began to call him and there was no answer,” she said, per Reuters.

Bachek tried to rush out of the house, but her partner stopped her, fearing that she’d be struck by any additional hits, Reuters reported. 

A few minutes later, she put on her coat and went outside, only to find ambulance crew members standing over her father’s dead body on the sidewalk. 

Bachek’s family did not flee Ukraine because her father’s health problems prevented them from doing so, Reuters reported. 

“In his normal life, even in war, he tried to smile, to joke, to support us. He said to us: ‘You are my girls, my heroes’,” she told Reuters.

The Russian invasion, which began on February 24, has forced millions of Ukrainians to flee their homeland. So far, more than 5.1 million Ukrainians have escaped since the beginning of the invasion, according to data from the United Nations Refugee Agency. In the first week alone, more than 1 million Ukrainians left.

Ukrainians who spoke to Insider over the course of the ongoing invasion have painted a grim picture of the devastation. They’ve described hearing missiles fire through the sky in the dead of night, having to share a single bulletproof vest as Russian soldiers tear through their towns, and troops shooting at homes and hospitals. 

Bachek said she kept the bread her father had been bringing home to the family. 

“The bread was in blood,” she said. “Now I can’t keep it in my hands, but I want to because it is a piece of my dad. It was the last thing he had in his hands.”