Russian overnight strikes on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions killed at least six people on Wednesday morning, Ukrainian officials said.
Five were killed in a missile strike that hit a residential building in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, the local governor said, and one in a strike on a town just outside the city of Dnipro, Ukraine’s internal affairs minister Igor Klymenko said.
The Zaporizhzhia region has seen intense shelling throughout the 20-month war.
Russian forces seized control of parts of the region, including Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, in the first days after last February’s invasion.
Overnight, Russian terrorists attacked Zaporizhzhia with missiles, striking an ordinary five-story residential building.
Eight apartments were destroyed. There are wounded and dead. There may be people under the rubble. Emergency rescue efforts are ongoing. My condolences go… pic.twitter.com/1O04A8Gt1Q— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 18, 2023
Following the attack on Zaporizhzhia Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia “continues to use terror and wage war on civilians” in a post on Telegram.
Zaporizhzhia governor Yuriy Malashko said Russia “launched six missile attacks on Zaporizhzhia city” between 1:33 am and 1:48 am (2233 and 2248 GMT Tuesday)and that an S-300 missile hit a residential building.
“The number of victims of the overnight terrorist attack by the Russians in Zaporizhzhia has increased to five,” Malashko said in a post on Telegram on Wednesday afternoon.
The bodies of three people previously considered missing were pulled from the rubble during search and rescue operations throughout Wednesday, he said.
Another five who sustained injuries were injured and taken to medical facilities.
Emergency services said the strike had destroyed the building’s third to fifth floors.
Photos showed a crater in the top half of the five-storey building and a collapsed facade.
“The apartment was badly damaged. The part facing the street is not there at all. There are two rooms on the other side and there is nothing left at all,” 41-year-old Tetyana, who owns a third-floor flat in the building and was not home at the time of the strike, told AFP.
In Dnipropetrovsk, interior minister Klymenko said a 31-year-old woman was killed and four were injured in an attack that destroyed eight buildings.
“Russia once again struck the civilian population,” he said in a post on Telegram.
There was no information on what weapon was used.
Russia’s defense ministry did not mention strikes in either area in its daily briefing. Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians.
Wednesday’s attacks come a day after Ukraine announced that it had used US long-range ATACMS missiles against Russia for the first time, without providing further details, while Kyiv’s special forces claimed responsibility for destructive strikes on airfields in Russian-held territory.
Separately, Russia’s defense ministry said on Wednesday it had intercepted 28 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions.
