Russia unleashed a major missile attack on Ukraine on Saturday, smashing through a nine-story apartment block in the city of Dnipro, killing at least five people and striking vital energy facilities, officials said.
Ukraine’s energy minister said the coming days would be “difficult” as months of Russian bombing of the power grid threaten supplies of electricity, running water and central heating in the dead of winter.
In the east-central city of Dnipro, 20 people were rescued from an apartment block where an entire section of the building was reduced to rubble, sending smoke into the sky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office said.
“Tragedy. I went to the site… We will be walking through the rubble all night,” said Boris Filatov, mayor of the missile-producing town on the Dnieper River.
Five people were killed and at least 60 people, including 12 children, were injured in the attack, with more people still trapped under the rubble, the district governor said.
Men stand next to a crater left by a Russian missile in the village of Kopiliv, near Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, on Saturday. (Valentin Ogirenko/Reuters)
Another person was killed and one injured in the steel-mining town of Kryvyi Rih, where six houses were damaged in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, Mayor Alexander Vilkul said.
In a speech overnight, Zelensky called on the West to supply more weapons to prevent further deaths from what he described as “Russian terror”.
“What is needed for this? Such weapons as our partners have in their stocks and which our warriors expect. The whole world knows what and how to stop those who sow death,” he said.
Britain will supply tanks
With Russia’s invasion now in its 11th month, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak confirmed on Saturday that he plans to send several Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, along with additional artillery support, his office said.
During a phone call with Zelensky, the two leaders “agreed on the need to seize this moment by accelerating global military and diplomatic support for Ukraine,” a Sunak spokesman said.
A statement from Sunak’s Downing Street office did not say how many tanks were involved or when they were due to be delivered.
People take shelter in a metro station as air raid sirens blare in Kyiv on Saturday. (Claude Kilcoyne/Reuters)
Saturday’s attack also comes ahead of a meeting of Ukraine’s allies in Ramstein, Germany, next Friday, when the governments will announce their latest pledges of military support.
On the front line in the east, Ukraine said its forces were struggling to retain control of the small town of Soledar, where Russia has sacrificed large numbers of troops and resources to try to secure some progress after months of setbacks.
In Dnipro, pictures showed firefighters putting out flames around the corpses of several cars. Much of the apartment block was missing, while the exterior of the rest of the building was badly damaged. The wounded were taken out on stretchers.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has been hitting its energy infrastructure with missiles and drones since October, causing massive blackouts and cuts to central heating and running water.
Ukraine shot down 25 of 38 Russian missiles of various types, the air force said.
The missiles hit critical infrastructure sites in the eastern region of Kharkiv and the western region of Lviv, officials said. The Kharkiv region is completely without power, and power and water outages are possible in Lviv, officials said.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moldova announced that after the airstrikes in the northern part of the country near the Ukrainian border, the remains of missiles were found.
Emergency power outages
Saturday’s attack came hours after a smaller rocket attack hit critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the city of Kharkiv.
The first attack was unusual because the missiles hit their targets before the air raid siren even sounded. No injuries were reported at the time, but rocket debris caused a fire in one area and damaged houses outside the capital, officials said.
DTEK, the largest private electricity company in Ukraine, introduced an emergency blackout in several regions.
Valentina Diachuk, 59, holds a photo of her missing son Mykola Diachuk and other Ukrainian soldiers during a demonstration in central Kyiv on Saturday. (Bela Shandelski/Associated Press)
Residential infrastructure in the village of Kopiliv, outside the capital, was also hit. The windows and roofs of 18 private houses were broken or damaged by the blast, regional governor Alexii Kuleba said.
Commenting on the first attack, Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat said the Russian missiles were likely fired on a high, circular ballistic trajectory from the north, which would explain why the air raid siren did not sound.
Ukraine is not able to identify and shoot down ballistic missiles, he told the online publication “Ukrainska Pravda”.
In northeastern Ukraine, two S-300 missiles hit the city of Kharkiv near the Russian border early Saturday, according to regional governor Oleg Sinegubov.
The attacks hit critical energy and industrial targets in the region’s Kharkiv and Chuguev areas, he said.
The status of a salt town is disputed
The attacks come amid conflicting reports about the fate of the hotly contested salt mining town of Soledar, in eastern Ukraine. Russia claims its forces have captured the city, a development that would mark a rare victory for the Kremlin after a series of humiliating battlefield setbacks.
Ukrainian authorities and Zelensky insist that the fight for Soledar continues.
WATCH | Russia won a victory in the battle for Soledar with the help of a group of mercenaries:
A hotly contested Ukrainian city falls to Russia with the help of a group of mercenaries
The hotly contested salt-mining town of Soledar in Ukraine has been claimed by Moscow, with the Russian Defense Ministry making clear that mercenaries from the Wagner Group did most of the fighting during the conflict.
Moscow has painted the battle for the city and the nearby town of Bakhmut as key to capturing the eastern Donbas region, which includes the partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and as a way to grind out Ukraine’s best forces and prevent them from launching counterattacks elsewhere.
But it is hampering both sides, as Ukraine says its fierce defense of its eastern strongholds has helped tie down Russian forces. Western officials and analysts say the significance of the two cities is more symbolic than strategic.
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