Six strikes in one day: how Epicenter employees fought the fire in Mykolaiv

September 4 Russian drones attacked the Mykolaiv region several times. One of the targets was the «Epicenter» shopping center in Mykolaiv: it recorded six hits over the course of the day. Company employees tried for almost a day to save the building from the fire.

When the attack began, staff and visitors were first moved to shelters. After the immediate danger passed, ten employees returned to the shopping center and began fighting the fire. They hid from drones several times and then went back into the damaged building.

After the first hit the central part of the «Epicenter» caught fire. The deputy director Vadym Larionov climbed onto the roof and fought the fire. Inside, security staff led by Serhii Adabir worked. They managed to extinguish that blaze.

We fought for our shopping center in Mykolaiv for almost a day. 10 of our guys, company employees, extinguished four fires in a row with their own hands. They climbed onto the roof. Entered the burning building. Shut off damaged pipes. Saved equipment. Hid from Shahed drones — and returned to the fire again.

Around 18:00 the shopping center was hit twice more in a row. Head of the tenth department Vladyslav Shapovalov extinguished fires on the outdoor site and other fire hotspots outside. Vadym Larionov worked near the façade. Later rescuers from the State Emergency Service (SES) joined them.

The next hit occurred in the area of the Furniture Center, where the fire suppression system activated. At about 20:00, after four hits, the main fire hotspots were extinguished. Inside the shopping center only smoldering remained.

After that there was one more strike: one drone fell, and the next hit the warehouse of the Furniture Center. At that moment there were still two drones over the city. Due to the threat of a new attack, employees and rescuers had to move to shelters.

They were able to return to the fire in about half an hour. During that time the fire spread to a significant part of the building. According to «Epicenter», about 42 thousand square meters caught fire. Strong winds caused the flames to quickly advance into the interior of the shopping center.

When employees and rescuers approached the fire again, the blaze was already so strong that structures began to collapse.

If not for the last hit, we would have saved the shopping center. We really tried very hard.

This is how the director of the shopping center Oleksandr Dmytryshyn assessed the situation. The company said that employees “almost saved the shopping center”, but Russian forces deliberately tried to destroy it. They also stated that the enemy perceives «Epicenter» stores as logistics complexes, although they are ordinary shopping centers.

The Mykolaiv «Epicenter» employed 520 people. Part of the staff had already lost their jobs after the company’s shopping centers in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Odesa were destroyed. After the attack on the Mykolaiv facility they again found themselves without jobs.

The next morning Yuliia Maliuta, who had worked there for a year and a half, came to the destroyed shopping center. The previous day she had stayed at work until midnight. The woman has three children, and the youngest child is five years old.

I don’t know what to do now, honestly. I have lost my job. I have three children. One child is still very small — she is only five years old. I look at all this and just cry.

According to Yuliia Maliuta, the team had long become for her more than just a workplace.

It was our life. For us it was a second family. We all supported one another, were like one family. And now many people have been left without work.

The company emphasized that for frontline Mykolaiv the shopping center was not just a store. Families came here, walked with children, bought necessities, drank coffee and charged phones. People even came from Kherson. The company said that it was one of the few places where during the war people could feel a normal life. After the attack, a charred ruin remained on the site of the shopping center.

The company named the employees who returned to the fire for almost a day as the main heroes of this story: Vadym Larionov, Serhii Adabir, Vladyslav Shapovalov and their colleagues.

«Epicenter» is not the walls. «Epicenter» is the people.

During the attack on September 4 Russian forces also struck the Kutsurub community. In Dmytrivka the roof of a private house was damaged, and a 57-year-old man was injured.

As a result of the strikes on Mykolaiv a 72-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl were injured.

Located next to the «Epicenter» is the Mykolaiv Zoo. According to its director Volodymyr Topchyi, the animals were not harmed because they were in enclosed areas during the attack.

Earlier we wrote:

• Mykolaiv Zoo animals survived the attack on the “Epicenter” unharmed
• In the Mykolaiv region, Russian drones repeatedly attacked “Epicenter”: there are injured
• After the enemy attack in the Mykolaiv region, a large-scale fire broke out at an enterprise
• A Russian missile strike destroyed the “Khortytsia” factory: up to 4 million bottles of finished products lost
• Residents of frontline cities were urged to refrain from visiting large shopping centers due to the threat of strikes