A missile strike on a residential building killed six and wounded dozens in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown on Monday, as Russia said it stepped up strikes against military facilities in response to attacks on its territory, including Moscow.
Two missiles landed close to the center of the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig just after 9:00 a.m. (0600 GMT), Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko wrote on Telegram.
Among the dead were a 10-year-old girl and her 45-year-old mother, while 75 people were injured, Klymenko and local authorities said.
One of the strikes hit a large nine-story residential apartment block, punching a huge hole in the facade that destroyed flats on several floors and sparked a fire.
Firefighters used a cherry-picker crane to direct jets of water at the fire, while the emergency ministry said part of the building had collapsed while the rubble was being cleared.
Russia said it had intensified attacks on military infrastructure in Ukraine after increasingly frequent drone assaults blamed on Kyiv.
Russia on Sunday said it had downed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and annexed Crimea in the latest wave of drone attacks.
President Zelensky, who was born and grew up in Kryvyi Rig, said Russians were “continuing to terrorize peaceful cities and people”.
The strikes in the city also damaged an academic building, according to the head of the city’s military administration, Oleksandr Vilkul.
In the southern city of Kherson, Russian shelling killed four and injured another 17, said the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak.
“The enemy is hitting residential neighborhoods,” Yermak said.
Meanwhile, shelling by Kyiv’s armed forces killed four people and wounded 10 in Ukraine’s eastern city of Donetsk, which is controlled by Russian forces, Moscow-installed authorities said.
Another person was killed in Ukrainian shelling on nearby Gorlivka, and a strike on an occupied village in the Zaporizhzhia region left three dead and 15 injured, the authorities said.
Russian forces had repelled Ukrainian attacks in the east and south of the country while continuing their own offensive around Kupiansk, the defense ministry said in its daily briefing.
AFP
