At least six people were killed when Russian missiles hit civilian buildings in an overnight attack Tuesday in the central Ukrainian town of Kryvyi Rih, regional officials said, as rescuers scrambled to rescue people believed trapped under the shells. debris.
The cruise missile attack hit a five-story residential building, which caught fire, Governor Serhiy Lysak of the Dnipropetrovsk region wrote on Telegram.
After initial reports of three dead, Kryvyi Rih Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul wrote on the social media app that the death toll had risen to at least six, with seven people feared trapped under the rubble. Authorities initially said at least two dozen people were injured.
The devastation in the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the latest bloodshed in Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in its 16th month, as Ukrainian forces are mounting counter-offensive operations using Western-supplied firepower to try to oust to the Russians. Footage of the scene broadcast by Zelenskyy on his Telegram channel showed firefighters battling the flames as pockets of fire burst through several broken windows of a building. Charred and damaged vehicles littered the nearby ground.
“More terrorist missiles,” he wrote. «Russian murderers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people.»
The air assault was the latest barrage of strikes by Russian forces that attacked various parts of Ukraine overnight.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was attacked by Iranian-made Shahed drones, and the surrounding region was shelled, local governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram. The shelling injured two civilians in the town of Shevchenkove, southeast of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported separately early Tuesday that the drone strike damaged a utility business and a warehouse in the northeast of the city. Neither Terekhov nor Syniehubov mentioned casualties in Kharkiv.
Kiev’s military administration reported that the capital was also hit on Tuesday, but incoming missiles were destroyed by air defenses and there were no immediate reports of casualties there.
Ukrainian forces are «advancing» on the outskirts of Bakhmut, the commander of the country’s ground troops said Tuesday morning. In a Telegram post, Oleksandr Syrskyi said Russian forces are «losing flank positions» near the besieged eastern city, while he characterizes Ukrainian operations in the area as «defensive.»
For weeks Ukrainian officials have reported small gains west of Bakhmut, which Moscow seized last month after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.
A day earlier, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said the country’s troops recaptured a total of seven villages spanning 90 square kilometers (35 square miles) of eastern Ukraine over the past week, small successes in the first few weeks. phases of a counteroffensive.
Russian officials did not confirm those Ukrainian gains, which were impossible to verify and could be reversed in the coming and going of the war.
The advance represented only small portions of territory and underscored the difficulty of the battle ahead for Ukrainian forces, who will have to fight meter by meter to recapture roughly a fifth of their country from Russian occupation.