Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that the death toll rose to 25 after Russia struck a nine-story apartment building in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro with missiles on Sunday, although rescuers tried to pull more people from the wreckage. Many survivors.
Workers used cranes to try to free people trapped on the top floors of the building of 1,700 residents, some of whom sent out distress calls on their mobile phones.
“Search and rescue operations and the removal of dangerous structural components continue around the clock. We continue to fight for every life,” President Zelenskiy said.
President Zelenskiy said 73 people were injured in Saturday’s attack and 39 had been rescued as of Sunday afternoon.
General Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said Russia fired 33 cruise missiles on Saturday, 21 of which were shot down. The air force command said the missile that hit the apartment building was a Kh-22 missile fired from Russia’s Kursk region, but Ukraine has no systems capable of intercepting such weapons.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed responsibility for the missile attack inside Ukraine, but made no mention of the attack on residential buildings in Dnepr. Some residents in the building say the building has no strategic military value.
“All designated targets have been hit,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said on social media “Telegram”. “The target of the attack has been achieved.” The Russian Defense Ministry said the missile was “fired at Ukrainian military command and control systems and related energy facilities.”
Infrastructure in the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Odessa regions, as well as Kharkiv and Kyiv, was also damaged by the wave of Russian missiles.
Local authorities reported that Ukrainian air defenses shot down Russian missiles in Mykolaev, Odessa, Kyiv, Khmelnytsky, Vinnytsia and Ivano-Frankivsk.
The missile strikes caused emergency power outages in areas such as the Kharkiv region and the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. In the western Lviv region, Governor Maxim Kozycki said power and water supplies could be disrupted due to missile damage.
Another energy facility in Western Ivano-Frankivsk region was hit, according to Governor Svetlana Onishuk.
Hours after Saturday’s missile attack, Britain pledged to send Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine to help repel a Russian incursion.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office said the tanks would be delivered in the coming weeks, followed by around 30 AS-90 self-propelled guns. He said training of the Ukrainian army on how to use artillery and tanks would begin soon.
The Challenger 2 is the main battle tank of the United Kingdom. It is designed to attack other tanks and has been in service since 1994, according to the military.
Russia is likely to increase the age limit for conscription from 27 to 30 in spring 2023, the UK Ministry of Defense said on Sunday, a move that would increase the number of recruits in the Russian army by at least 30%.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed support for the move, according to the UK Ministry of Defense. The MoD added that “Russian officials may be testing the public’s reaction.”
(Some information for this article comes from AFP, Reuters and the Associated Press.）
