On the morning of August 3, russian troops shelled Bakhmut, Donetsk oblast. They targeted and completely destroyed the Vilne Radio office. This is reported on the media outlet’s website.
The building which housed the Vilne Radio office was shelled in the morning of August 3.
“The explosion was so powerful that there are no walls left in the office, which had about a hundred square meters of space, and the nearby rooms. Tons of concrete and bricks were scattered over dozens of meters,” the media outlet writes.
The shelling attack resulted in no casualties.
Vilne Radio believes that russian troops probably targeted a civilian facility deliberately. Separatist groups on Telegram write that this building used to house the radio office, a cafe, a service station, and a post office.
In her comment to an IMI representative, Vilne Radio executive director Anastasia Shibiko noted that the team had managed to take all the essential equipment for their work away back at the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
Citing the building’s owner, she noted that at the time of the strike, there were no people inside the building and no one was injured.
“People on the Z Telegram channels wrote that they had been leaking the coordinates, and we assume that this may be true, because every now and then they discuss some object or other, and in a few days it gets hit. They wrote there that there had been Aidar fighters and soldiers in the building, and they were all crushed. This is why we assume that this was a deliberate act. Moreover, they did not hold back with this airstrike,” Anastasia Shibiko said.
According to her, the first floor of the building had the only remaining service station in the city, and both military personnel and other residents were its clients. There was also a Nova Poshta branch there. Local collaborators used to spread rumors that the Ukrainian military was allegedly using the branch to mail away looted goods. On the other hand, as the Vile Radio executive director noted, this branch had been closed for several months.
Recently, the editorial office started receiving threats from unknown people again.
“They were wrtiting, ‘We will find you!’ So, we removed the office address from our website, but it remained on various other websites. I don’t know if the threats are related to the shelling, but recently these bots or not-bots have become more active,” Anastasia said.
She added that it was the only room in Bakhmut that suited them. “They divided the office into two parts for us, changed the heating system. We had a very good relationship with the landlord. We haven’t been paying rent since March. The owners were understanding and sent us no bills.”