How Victims of Russian Missile Strikes Are Now Targets for American Conspiracy Theorists

On the morning of Feb. 26, 2022, the third day of a full-scale invasion, a Russian missile flew into a multi-story building on Lobanovsky Avenue in Kyiv. The ensuing explosion destroyed apartments from the 18th to the 22nd floor. The upper part of the house was at risk of collapse.

Several people were seriously injured, but amazingly no one was killed.

Despite being documented by the world’s media at the time, the fact that a year later the building once again looks new has melted the brains of some commentators in the U.S. who, apparently, aren’t familiar with the term “reconstruction”.

One such individual is conspiracy theorist Stew Peters, who recently published photos on Twitter to his hundreds of thousands of followers of the same building that was struck a year ago, claiming that “This war is fake”.

The false claim went viral, spreading the lie further and further around the world.

‘Providence saved us’

The Insarova family – 49-yeard-old Oksana, her husband Oleh and their 13-year-old daughter Daryna – lived in one of the apartments at the epicenter of the explosion.

“Those who say that this is all a fake, I can only say one thing – come to Kyiv and stay here during an air raid alert, when missiles and drones are shot down,” Oksana tells the Kyiv Post.

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Ukrainian lawmakers were advised to limit their presence in the area and were urged to ensure the safety of their families.

"Come here. Ukraine is not closed – get on the train and come,” she added. “There is no need to go to Kharkiv, Kherson or Zaporizhzhia – Kyiv is enough, and even Lviv or Odesa; there is no need to go closer to the front line.

"Let them look at the photos and video I did when I came here. The apartment was full of bricks mixed with clothes. I found the box from our TV on the other side of Lobanovsky avenue [and] I found my daughter's clothes in a parking lot.”

The building pictured after the Russian missile attack.

The Insarova family were saved by the fact they had gone to stay with friends as Russian troops tried to capture Kyiv.

“We were saved by chance,” Oksana says.

A neighbor had notified her of the incident about fifteen minutes after the high-rise building was struck that indelible day.

“Earlier, I had invited friends from [the Kyiv suburb of] Irpin to visit us, but they decided to go to the west of Ukraine. Two families with children would [have] been in the apartment had they came to us that morning,” Oksana says.

 Oksana's ktichen after the Russian missile strike.

‘The missile exploded in my bedroom’

Oksana and her husband, Oleh Tochenyuk, for many years saved money to purchase the 20^th-floor apartment that offered a beautiful of Kyiv.

They sold their other property, borrowed a little, and bought living space in 2011 to move into the newly built apartment. Three years later, the building was commissioned, but due to hesitancy over Russia’s forcible seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and covert invasion of the Donbas, the married couple were in no hurry to resettle.

They needed money for refurbishment, furniture and household appliances. In the summer of 2020, the family finally moved into their new abode.

“I saw the different consequences of the shelling. I saw how [Soviet-era] panel houses are going down. And we were lucky – our house survived because it had a monolithic-frame,” Oksana recalled while conveying her first emotions of the news when her dream apartment had been destroyed.

A Russian projectile struck the master bedroom and then rocket fuel had leaked to another floor, causing a fire that spread to a total of six additional floors.

“When I found out, I was shocked but not hysteric,” Oksana says.

“My husband suffered harder – he worked a lot, we did not travel much, we travelled abroad only once, trying to save money."

Their daughter found respite by putting a blanket over her head and hid in bed all day. "We cried a little," Oksana says. "But I quickly began to smile again because if my depression had started, it would have started for everyone."

After the projectile hit the building, only a few populated apartments remained – the rest of the residents fled to Europe. Still, the residents used a messaging platform to communicate and raised money to erect temporary scaffolding to protect the house from collapse.

An architectural firm was hired and concrete columns were set in place. Their combined efforts to draw attention to their plight elicited donations from European countries where donors contributed to restoring the integrity of the high-rise.

The repaired living room. 

In June, the Kyiv city administration provided additional financial aid and water supply, as well as, heating was restored by the end of 2022.

The family’s apartment is rejuvenated, yet everything inside that gives a home warmth and a feeling of safety is gone.

The interior is naked with barren walls, a basic toilet, a cavernous kitchen and a playroom filled with light but without comfort since furniture is absent.

Stew Peters did not respond to a request for comment from Kyiv Post.