How 48 Ukrainian children were saved from Kharkiv kindergarten hit by Russian drone

Although moving forward, Oleksandr Volobuev’s body is angled slightly away from the camera, as if bracing against the deadly air still swirling with falling debris and smoke.

His face in careful concentration, the Major-General from Ukraine’s Civil Protection Service clings tightly to a precious bundle, wrapped for protection in his coat – and out of which two small pink shoes protrude.

It is a striking image of a dramatic rescue from a nursery school in the eastern city of Kharkiv, following a devastating, direct hit by a Russian drone.

Unsurprisingly it has gone viral, capturing both the Ukrainian and the wider global public’s imagination.

With 48 children trapped in a shelter in the burning building, it was not the only act of bravery that day, not by a long way.

But few photographs better sum up the growing impact of Russia’s full-scale invasion on everyday life, with Ukraine’s most vulnerable now bearing the brunt, including children.

“We got the call that there had been an attack on the kindergarten,” Oleksandr Volobuev told me. “And, of course, knowing there would be children there, we set off in a state of some anxiety.”

Little did he expect that by the end of that day, as a result of carrying that little girl to safety, he would find himself being hailed as a national hero.

In a split-second moment caught on camera, the Ukrainian people saw not only the reality of Russia’s new strategy – its increasing attacks on civilian infrastructure – but also a stark depiction of their own resilience and defiance.

It’s impossible to know why the Honey Academy, based in a sturdy, two-storey brick building in Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirsky district, was hit by a Shahed drone.

The low, menacing hum of those Iranian-designed weapons, which carry a lethal 50kg payload, is now all too familiar, not only to soldiers on the front line, but to Ukrainians everywhere.

While they can be devastatingly accurate, the large volume being fired by Russia – with multiple waves of drones in each attack on cities across the country – means some inevitably malfunction.

Russia has regularly denied targeting residential areas, but maps of the city show no obvious military targets in the immediate vicinity of the kindergarten, and the Ukrainian government certainly spoke of it as deliberate.

“There is no justification for an attack on a kindergarten, nor can there ever be,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said shortly after the strike. “Clearly, Russia is growing more brazen.”

Fedir Uhnenko was also with one of the emergency teams rushing to respond to the strike.

Normally, as a press officer with the Civil Defence Service, he is not so closely involved in frontline work.

But this time, seeing the disaster unfolding in front of him, he knew he had to act.

“There’d been a huge explosion and there was horror in their eyes,” he told me, on finding the children huddled in the building’s basement.

Luckily, following the air raid warning that had sounded before the attack, the children had taken cover in the school’s shelter there.

But with the fire still burning, the roof destroyed and the building filling with smoke and dust, they were still in danger.

His colleagues, as well as members of the public who had come to help, stepped forward one by one to scoop up a child.

Like Oleksandr, his more senior commander, Fedir was pictured carrying a child to safety. In his case it was a young boy, through the rubble and smoke.

“I was reassuring him all the way that everything was fine, there was nothing to worry about,” he explained.

“When we came out of the building, there was a car on fire. Our boys were putting it out. And, you know, I was surprised the kid didn’t cry. There was certainly fear in his eyes.”

“I said to him, go ahead and hold me as tight as you like. I’m quite big myself and, as you can see in the photo, he grabbed me so tightly.”

In the end, he had fulfilled two roles: the rescue work and his day job too. His press officer’s helmet-camera rolled throughout, capturing many of the up-close photographs and videos that have since been beamed around the world.

The children were carried to an emergency reception point in a safe zone, a few hundred metres from the nursery school.

All were unharmed, but there can be little doubt about the danger they faced.

One adult working nearby was killed in the strike and nine others were wounded, one with serious burns and another a traumatic amputation of her leg.

For all the rescuers, Fedir told me, there was the constant awareness not only of the risks of fire, falling masonry and smoke, but of the possibility of another strike.

Russia has been known to hit the same target twice, which Ukrainians see as a deliberate strategy to kill emergency workers.

The day after the nursery school attack, one of these so called “double taps” killed a firefighter and wounded five of his colleagues in a village a short distance from Kharkiv.

Ukraine believes Russia has turned to civilian targets in desperation over its inability to make significant gains on the battlefield.

Both Oleksandr and Fedir say what they saw at the kindergarten has done little to change their view of the enemy.

“From the beginning I have only one feeling that we must go through all this and win,” Oleksandr told me.

I ask him what kind of future he envisages for the 48 young lives he helped save.

“Of course, only good, happy lives,” he replied. “But not only our children. I would like all children to live in peace.”