Ukraine: Russian attack kills civilians
Shelling follows high-level diplomatic peace missions
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia stepped up its missile and drone attacks against Ukraine on Wednesday, killing students and other civilians, in a violent followup to dueling high-level diplomatic missions aimed at bringing peace after 13 months of war.
“Russia is shelling the city with bestial savagery,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a Telegram post accompanying video showing what he said was a Russian missile striking a nine-story apartment building on a busy road in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
At least one person was killed in the attack shown in the Zaporizhzhia video, apparently recorded by closed circuit TV cameras. Elsewhere, Moscow’s forces launched exploding drones before dawn, killing at least eight people in or near a student dormitory near Kyiv.
Ukrainian media showed several angles of the missile raining down on an apartment building across the street from a shopping mall in Zaporizhzhia, producing a huge plume of gray and black smoke, with bits of concrete flying into the air as cars whizzed by. Videos showed the violent outcome of the attack: charred apartments, flames and smoke billowing out of several floors of the buildings, and piles of broken concrete and shards of glass on the ground. Two children were among the wounded, said Zaporizhzhia City Council Secretary Anatolii Kurtiev, adding 25 people needed hospital treatment.
Zaporizhzhia city is about 60 miles from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest which has come under threat and has been shut down for months. The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency reported the plant suffered another loss of a backup external power source. Its six reactors still need power to cool nuclear fuel, and were relying on only a primary source Wednesday, the IAEA said.
Russia has denied targeting residential areas even though artillery and rocket strikes hit apartment buildings and civilian infrastructure daily. Russian officials have blamed Ukrainian air defenses for some of the deadliest strikes on apartments, saying the deployment of air defense systems in residential areas puts civilians at risk.
The war has evolved in two main directions: a front line mainly in eastern Ukraine, centered around the city of Bakhmut, and periodic Russian missile and drone strikes nationwide. In addition, periodic — although unconfirmed — Ukrainian sabotage attacks have been launched into Russia. The front-line fighting largely stalemated over the winter.
Earlier Wednesday, a drone attack damaged a high school and two dormitories in the city of Rzhyshchiv, south of the Ukrainian capital, officials said. The body of a 40-year-old man was among those pulled from the rubble on one floor, according to a regional police chief, who said more than 20 people were hospitalized.
The attacks occurred as dueling diplomatic missions were winding down. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida left Kyiv after meeting Zelenskyy to support Ukraine. Chinese leader Xi Jinping left Moscow after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Beijing’s peace proposal, which the West has rejected as a non-starter. No progress toward peace was reported.