“Viktor Orbán said that Transcarpathia is an island of peace. I believed that until now, I was calm,” commented one of the workers of the destroyed factory with a puzzled look in her eyes about the Russian missile attack on Munkács. The female member of the family, sitting in the clean room of the Transcarpathian village, among the decorative pillows arranged on the sofa, added only this:

This theory has now been debunked.

The statement not only reveals a lot about how fundamental the Hungarian Prime Minister's words are in the Hungarian-populated regions of Ukraine. The shock of the Hungarian minority also indicates that the people of Transcarpathia see the attack on the area, located barely 25 kilometers from the Hungarian border, as a turning point.

The first rocket landed in front of the shelter.

It was near the end of the night shift when the workers at the American electronics factory, which employs 3,000 people, received an air raid warning on their phones. They responded to the warning with years of routine: “We continued working. Nothing has happened at this time in the past three and a half years,” explained the man, who asked not to be named. But then the factory’s siren suddenly blared.

"We had never heard this alarm before. They immediately started to herd us into the shelter. There was panic, everyone was shouting, stamping on each other, the women were wailing. We ran down, but I was still in the factory area when the first rocket hit. I didn't see any light, I only remember the bang and how it pushed me up, but then I got up and ran on. Everyone in the shelter was lying on the ground, and I crawled under a bench, a little lady, I didn't even know her, but she was holding my hand and praying. Everyone was in a panic."

Then came the next rocket. It was so powerful that the iron doors of the shelter buckled, the ceiling collapsed in the middle, and the lights went out.

Later, everyone was pushed onto the road, ambulances and buses came, and people were quickly taken away. I have never experienced anything like this. Those who live in the hotbed of war may not be surprised, but here, in Transcarpathia, it is terrible. I have not been able to sleep since then, I feel the explosion in my stomach.”

The force of the Russian attack is indicated by the fact that another of our interviewees, Pál Popovics, who lives five kilometers from the area, and his family have been affected by the event ever since. “I woke up to a bang. I didn’t know what it was, I went out into the garden. The second missile flew over my head. It made a roar, as if a fighter jet had flown over me. I was terrified. A few seconds later I saw a red flash, and then there was such a detonation that I collapsed from the air pressure.”

My 15-year-old daughter hasn't dared to sleep alone since then. My brother's daughter had a crying fit. The rockets were incredibly powerful.