Edited machine translation. Photo credits, Getty Images, BBC Ukrainian service

‘We've been waiting here since six in the morning. My son's classmate and his family live in that building,’ says Viktoria. She stands with her children near the house where a Russian missile destroyed an entire stairwell.

Her apartment, one of hundreds, was also damaged in the attack on the capital on 31 July. The debris of the destroyed high-rise building is being cleared in the courtyard. Dozens of high-rise buildings with blown-out windows surround the site. At least 15 people, including two children, were killed in the shelling in Kyiv.

The destroyed entrance is cordoned off with red and white tape. Rescuers are continuously searching for people who may be trapped under the rubble.

Special equipment is removing burnt and deformed cars from under the damaged building.

Dozens of people have gathered near the tape. Among them, it is easy to spot those waiting for news from under the rubble. There are tears in their eyes. Their gaze is filled with despair.

Russian attack destroyed an entire entrance to a residential building

In total, more than 130 people were injured in Kyiv. The mayor said that 12 children were among the injured.

In the courtyard with the destroyed building, there is a persistent smell of burning mixed with wet grass trampled by the morning rain.

People are standing in queues to get plastic sheeting for their windows and boards to secure it with. Broken glass is scattered everywhere. Dog owners are carrying their pets in their arms so they don't hurt their paws.

Svitlana and Vitaliy were asleep when the strike hit. Their flat is in the third entrance of the building, which is partially destroyed. Fortunately, they and their two children were unharmed.

‘We thought something had fallen on us. Until we went out into the street. We don't know what happened to the apartment yet — we went straight to our parents' house and now we're back,’ says Svitlana.

She is carrying her seven-month-old baby in a sling. The owners of the apartments in the damaged building are not allowed to enter their homes, so the family is waiting for rescuers to allow them to retrieve at least some of their belongings.

They are waiting to be allowed home, along with people in bathrobes who ran out of their apartments wearing whatever they had on.

Several others around it were significantly damaged. Police say that, fortunately, there were no casualties at this location.

The entire street is covered with poplar leaves and green apples — the blast wave swept them from the trees.

Sixty-year-old Oleg is sitting near a half-destroyed house. He was alone with his son at the time of the strike.

‘The ceiling fell on me. Well, I dug myself out. But he got the worst of it,’ the man says, pointing to his dog Miki.

"He was in the doghouse and it flew 20 metres away from him. There's a crater there. The guys have now removed the remains of the rocket," says Oleg.

He and his son were not injured. Two cats also survived. However, the house was badly damaged — the roof, windows and doors were destroyed.

A few weeks ago, there was already shelling in this area. Then a small fragment hit a wooden toilet in the man's yard.

‘And now you can collect a whole rocket here,’ Oleg tries to joke.

‘My neighbours say, “Did you go grey overnight? ” And I reply that it's just plaster that fell on my head.’

Oleg does not yet know where he will live. He hopes that while it is still summer, he will be able to stay at home and carry out repairs.

However, his neighbour Natalia says that their house is unlikely to be repaired. She was also at home with her family during the shelling.

"I don't know, I guess we were lucky because no one was hurt. If we had lived ten metres further away... Thank God no one was living in that house, there were no people there because it was a direct hit. Our house has cracks in the walls and landslides. The house is very old. It's a miracle that it survived, and we survived as a result," says the girl.

During the drone attack, the family was in the basement. After the attack, everyone went to bed.

‘I was supposed to go to Kharkiv on a business trip today. Now I have no way to get there, both of our cars were burned. We have nowhere else to live, so we don't know where we're going yet,’ says Natalia.

The first of August was declared a day of mourning in Kyiv in memory of those who died as a result of the Russian attack on the capital.

On the night of 31 July, more than 20 locations in Kyiv were hit

Two elderly men have loved ones in the collapsed entrance hall. They stand silently, watching the rescuers work.

‘It's the medics who have to confirm death first. I guess there aren't any documents left there...’ says one of them.

People periodically approach the tape to ask the police if they know anything about their relatives or acquaintances.

People return home after a drone attack

Oksana is a social worker. She came to the entrance to find out some information about a disabled man she was looking after.

"We've been calling everyone since early morning, it's our duty, to find out who's okay and who's not. The girls wrote that some of their clients had broken windows and balconies. So I knew something had happened here. I ran here to see and saw what I was so afraid of," says the woman.

So far, the man she is looking for is considered missing. So is his sister, with whom he lived in the apartment. A police officer writes down the social worker's phone number and says that the bodies may have to be identified if no other relatives are found.

Oksana agrees and promises to come back later. There may still be people under the rubble of the destroyed entrance.

The drone attack on Kyiv lasted all night. After the all-clear, people who had been hiding in shelters returned home. Closer to six in the morning, the alarm sounded again and a few minutes later rockets flew overhead.

‘We hid in the hallway when the missiles were flying, and then, when everything quieted down, we went to bed,’ says Tetyana, who lives in a building next to the partially destroyed one.

She points to her balcony with broken windows. Another neighbour shows her kitchen window, which is now deformed and won't close.

‘I thought it was the end. It felt like the ceiling was falling and everything in the apartment was turning upside down.’

At that moment, another acquaintance of the women approaches them and asks for her apartment number to fill out compensation documents. She forgot where she lives due to the stress.

The sounds of construction equipment and angle grinders cutting wood chipboard can be heard all around.

Nearby, less than a hundred metres from the epicentre of the explosion, cafes continue to operate.

New goods have been delivered to the local supermarket, whose façade was damaged, and the store is operating as usual.

First, ‘ground yourself.’ Then mourn

A few hours after the attack, the courtyard where the entrance collapsed is already filled with tents: volunteers, police, rescuers. Portable toilets have been set up and water is being distributed.

Vesna, a psychologist with the Samaritan Union of Ukraine, offers a woman standing next to a burnt-out car a cup of hot tea.

‘The work is hard, but we understand that we are doing something important. I'll worry and stress about it when I get home,’ says the young woman.

The hardest thing for her on days like these is the realisation that nothing can be changed.

‘We will be able to cope with the consequences, but unfortunately, Russia is not going anywhere,’ says Vesna.

She advises people who find themselves in such situations to first make sure that the danger has passed.

"When we realise that we are safe, we “ground” ourselves. Name five things you see, four things you hear, three smells you smell. Try something new to taste. In addition, muscle relaxation. Clench your hands, jump, shake. This activates the “run, freeze” system. Once we activate it, our body relaxes a little."

Then, says the psychologist, it is worth finding something to do. Either help someone else or yourself: gather documents, tidy up, repair windows.

‘And only after that, think about what to do next: suffer, worry, cry,’ says Vesna.

‘You can assemble a rocket in the yard’

During the night and morning attacks, more than 20 locations in the capital were hit. One of the rockets hit a residential building in the Solomyanskyi district.

The epicentre of the explosion was a four-storey private house, which was unoccupied. It was completely destroyed.