Rescue work, the mutilated Freedom Square and the surviving flag in the photos of Pavel Dorogoy

On March 1, 2022, Russian forces launched a missile strike on the central square of Kharkiv — Freedom Square. 29 people were killed. As seen from a CCTV camera, the explosion occurred at 8:02 a.m. At least four cars drove near the square at this time. The rocket hit the right wing of the building of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration. The buildings of the opera house, the Philharmonic and part of the residential complex — four- and five-story buildings — were also damaged.
Instead, the Ukrainian flag on the Regional State Administration building remained intact.

The head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration Oleg Syenegubov noted that the Russians shelled the center of Kharkiv with “Gradiv” and cruise missiles. The coordinator of the “Everything for Victory” tent, located opposite the entrance to the building of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, Boris Redin noted that in total there were two missile strikes. At this time there were about ten people in the tent, they ran for shelter.

March 1 Photographer Pavlo Dorohoi was in Kharkov - stayed in the apartment of friends. On the first day of a full-scale invasion he left his home in the village of Rai-Olenovka to work as a fixer for foreign publications. Such work made it possible to shoot while accreditation from the Armed Forces comes.

Pavlo Dorohoy recalls that the first morning of spring in Kharkiv was unusually quiet. Around eight in the morning, the house shook, and the sound of the explosion came a little later. “A friend showed a video showing how the missile arrives at the regional administration building. I watched it again and again, trying to grasp this fact: Russia struck at the very center of Kharkov. In the beautiful city where I was born and raised. Where was my son born,” says Pavel Dorogoy. He decided to go to the Freedom Square and take away. On the way, he was stopped by SBU employees, to whom he showed documents and a camera. Paul went to the central square through the deserted Sumsk street. In the distance, he saw broken wires and Christmas decorations. “In Sumska, there were sounds of broken shop alarms. I walked up to the Freedom Square and the broken windows became more and more. Closer to the Maidan, the asphalt was completely covered with glass. It was the first time I walked on broken glass,” says the photographer. He adds that these sounds, images and smells will stay with him for life.

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In the center, Paul saw a broken corner of the administration house and a rip from another explosion, near which firefighters were bustling. The “All for Victory” tent simply did not exist — it was blown up by an explosion wave. The day before, Paul met the volunteers of the tent and was worried that they would not die. Miraculously, people were not hurt.

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“For the first time in my life, I saw a dead body in Freedom Square. He was carried in the carpet by four people. The fact that this is a man was realized by the large boots that hung in the air. The dead man was laid near a broken Peugeot car, which was standing next to the tent. There was already a woman's body — I understood this by the small, fragile ankles,” says Pavlo Dorohoy. After that, the photographer saw many deaths. On the day of the attack, ten dead were pulled from under the rubble. Over the next few weeks, rescuers combed through the rubble in search of bodies. The latter were pulled out in mid-March.

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“Before that, I could not believe that in the 21st century people can still solve problems with weapons. Unfortunately, they can,” says photographer Pavlo Dorohoy.