Astronaut Jannicke Mikkelsen visits Ukraine strike sites

Astronaut Jannicke Mikkelsen has visited Kryvyj Rih, Ukraine, to witness the aftermath of missile strikes she previously observed from space. While aboard the SpaceX Dragon 2 capsule 450 kilometers above Earth in early April 2025, Mikkelsen witnessed Russian missiles traveling through the atmosphere toward Ukraine.

During her visit in August, Mikkelsen traveled with a Norwegian humanitarian organization to inspect sites hit by the strikes. She visited a business struck by a Russian ballistic missile on April 2, 2025, an attack that killed four people and injured 17. She also visited a playground hit by a rocket two days later, which resulted in 20 deaths, including nine children.

Mikkelsen stated that she sought to see the reality on the ground to understand the full impact of the war, noting that seeing the strikes from space was a painful experience.