(CNN) — Matviy Voronov’s message reeks of desperation. “Is anyone from the Voronov family alive? Maybe someone has seen them?” he asked in a local community group on Thursday, after learning that Russia hit his home village in southern Ukraine with a ballistic missile.
“Matviy, I was there. Only the foundation of the house remained, everyone died,” one of the neighbors replied.
As of Thursday afternoon, rescuers had recovered six bodies from the rubble of the home in the rural village of Radushne, in the Dnipro Region, including those of Voronov’s parents and four children.
Local authorities said they believed 10 people were in the house when it was struck: Voronov’s parents Olena, 41, and Artem, 47, seven of his nine siblings – Mark, 17, Dominika, 15, Vioryka 14, Zakhariy, 12, Azariy Ilai, 11, Federikа 10 and Emilia, six – and his one-and-a-half-year old nephew Artem.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the Military Administration of Kryvyi Rih, told CNN the Voronovs’ home was struck with an Iskander ballistic missile launched by Russia from Voronezh.
The modest house did not have a chance. The Iskander missile flies at six to seven times the speed of sound and can carry up to 700 kilograms of explosives.
“It was an ordinary home, blown into smithereens by a ballistic missile,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said of the attack.
Authorities were still trying to locate the other four people known to have been in the house when the missile struck. They have warned that the chances of anyone surviving the attack are low and that DNA testing might be necessary to identify the remains.
The family dog, named by local media as Rocky, was found alive after one of the rescuers spotted his tail poking out of the rubble.
The attack on Radushne was part of a massive Russian aerial assault overnight into Thursday, with Ukrainian authorities saying Moscow fired more than 70 missiles – many of them ballistic – as well as 280 drones against multiple cities across Ukraine.
According to preliminary reports, Russia used a North Korean ballistic missile “for the first time in a long while” near Radushne, Zelensky said.
“This war could have ended long ago, but (Russian President Vladimir) Putin doesn’t want that. One moment he’s looking for weapons in North Korea, the next he’s in Iran, and then he’s coming up with something else. Anything to keep fighting, to keep killing,” Zelensky said.
Contrary to evidence from the ground in Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed its attacks were targeting military sites.
Russia’s powerful ballistic missiles are incredibly difficult for Ukraine to intercept because they travel at extremely high speeds. Some of the most advanced missiles can only be shot down using the US-made Patriot defense systems, which are in short supply. Zelensky on Thursday described it as a “critical shortage of air defense missiles from our partners.”
“When we say that Ukraine needs missiles for Patriots … we are talking about families like this, people like (the Voronovs), who can live if we have the means to shoot down Russian missiles – if our partners help us with interceptors,” Zelensky said.
The news of Russia killing the family sparked a huge outpouring of emotions and solidarity in Ukraine, with local social media groups flooded with messages praising the Voronovs as a loving family.
A neighbor told CNN that the Voronovs were devout Christians, who saw their large family as a blessing. “They always had a radiant glow about them,” Kateryna Chernysh, the neighbor, said.
“They raised their children to help one another and communicate with each other. In the village, they were known as an exemplary family who showed others how to be friends and how to love, and support one another,” she added.
She said the baby boy who was staying with the family was Olena and Artem’s grandson – the child of their eldest son who is serving in the Ukrainian military.
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