“Twenty more meters and we would have hit the pool.” The Russian Federation demolished a sports complex in Dnipro where swimmers of the Ukrainian national team trained

Oleksandr Zheltyakov, a future participant in the 2024 Olympics, was staying in a hotel near the sports complex at the time of the explosion.

On the night of Tuesday - August 15 - Russian troops began a massive shelling of Ukraine. As a result of the rocket attack, explosions occurred in the Lviv, Volyn, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Among the objects damaged by shelling is the "Meteor" sports complex in Dnieper. The head of the Dnepropetrovsk OVA, Serhiy Lysak, reported about the mutilation of the arena on the Telegram channel. He also posted a photo of the effects of the shelling.

“An important sports facility for the Dnieper. All-Ukrainian competitions were held here. The children were practicing," Lysak wrote.

“Today, in addition to the enterprise, Russian missiles also crippled it. The windows were blown out, the façade and the inner wall were destroyed."

Leading Ukrainian swimmers reacted to the attack on social networks. So, Denys Kesil, a participant in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, announced on Instagram that he was preparing for the competition in the Meteor pool.

Oleksandr Zheltyakov, two-time European junior backstroke champion, owner of the Paris-2024 Olympic license, was in Dnieper at the time of the attack. "The rocket exploded 20 meters from my [hotel] room," he wrote on Instagram. The 17-year-old swimmer says that although the swimming pool of the sports complex escaped critical damage, it is still too early to talk about returning to training in it.

"I woke up in the night because I'm having trouble sleeping now. Then I heard the first flight that took place at the factory. I immediately woke everyone up and we went to the bunker. I went out to the main hall to ask the guard what had happened and where. While I was making inquiries, a missile landed on the Meteor.

"There are five of us here - those who competed at the European Junior Championships. We have been training in "Meteor" for a month. In two weeks we have the end of the season. For now it is difficult to say when we will be able to resume training at our swimming pool.