18-year-old helps dig woman from Kyiv rubble after Russia's deadly strike

Ivan, who lives near the impact site, rushed with his father toward the rubble to check on friends in the neighborhood.

"I found my friends — thank God they were alright," Ivan told hromadske. “And then I saw the terrible rubble, a few volunteers, helping a small group of State Emergency Service workers. And something just switched off in my head. The fear disappeared. I just put on gloves, helped a police officer lower a girl down, and then started helping the rescuers.”

He then heard a woman screaming from beneath the wreckage and began digging her out alongside an emergency worker.

"The woman was screaming terribly, begging for help," the young Kyiv resident said.

“We started digging her out, and at that moment they began fighting a fire — a huge column of smoke came at us. We dug a small hole, climbed in, and just started scooping out small pieces of debris like dogs. We cleared her right leg, then her left. It was very hard because the smoke made it impossible to breathe properly and it burned our eyes. After we had dug her out almost to the torso, she stopped screaming.”

A rescuer told Ivan to keep talking to the woman so she would not fall silent while emergency workers worked to free her. He did.

"At that moment I just started breaking down," Ivan said. “I began to understand where I was, what was happening — that a person was under the rubble, screaming and suffering. I was crying and still digging. Then a police officer put his hand on my shoulder and said: 'Enough. Step back.' Then the State Emergency Service took over.”

He and another volunteer dug until they reached a concrete slab that had pinned the woman down. Lifting it required heavy equipment operated by the rescue workers.

Ivan said the woman was ultimately rescued, but that her child and husband remain trapped beneath the rubble.

Ukraine's State Emergency Service said it has information on at least 20 people still unaccounted for at the site. Search and rescue operations in the Darnytskyi district are ongoing.

What is known about Russia's attack on Kyiv and the region on May 14

Russia continued its assault on Ukraine overnight into May 14, following the mass attack on May 13, firing cruise and ballistic missiles and drones. Kyiv was heavily targeted, with damage recorded at 20 locations across the capital.

In the Darnytskyi district, one section of an apartment building collapsed. At least five people were killed, including a 12-year-old girl. Search operations at the strike site are ongoing.

As of 12:16 p.m., 44 people had been reported wounded in the capital, including two children. The Kyiv City Military Administration said a one-month-old infant was poisoned by carbon monoxide. 31 of the wounded were hospitalized, including one child.

Air Force communications chief Yurii Ihnat said Ukraine endured one of the most massive aerial attacks since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion overnight into May 14.

"Tonight, air defense work was extraordinarily intense. It is impossible to shoot down such a large number of targets with a limited number of assets," Ihnat said, noting that Russian forces deployed nearly the full spectrum of available weapons — cruise and ballistic missiles, jet-powered drones, Shaheds, Gerberas, and other drone types — with Kyiv as the primary target.