The Russian missiles come to Zaporizhzhia when the “people’s dreams are at their deepest”, says Oleksandr Starukh.
The governor of this south-eastern region of Ukraine since 2020, Starukh, 49, took the call from his bed at 5.08am on the morning of 24 February when one of the first missiles of the Russian invasion had hit a local air defence system. Nearly eight months later he is still taking the dawn calls.
