The story of Le Figaro’s Special Reporter

Special Envoy of Nicopol and Maranes

There is a large piece missing from the building. The missile that hit it in the middle of the night from Wednesday to Thursday, blasted off the roof and collapsed the three upper floors. A rain of bricks plucked the surrounding trees. We rescued two women from under the rubble. An old man, a former founder and a communist at heart, didn’t make it. “Why would you do that? Why would they kill the old people in their beds?”, Anna Sedylova, the building manager, laments, rubbing her face in dismay. On the first floor, they are still somewhat standing still, an old couple refuses to leave. “I try to make them listen to reason”as you say

The scene is sinisterly repeated throughout Nikopol, this small town on the banks of the Dnieper. On the boulevard de Patriot de Ukraine, two “Khrushchevka”, these sad, ugly and always gray Soviet buildings, hidden, sidewalks littered with debris that three young women are working to clear, broom …