Missiles hit apartments; 7 die

KYIV, UKRAINE >> Russian missiles hit apartment buildings in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday, killing at least seven people, with at least five others missing, in a region that Moscow has illegally annexed, a local official said.

Two strikes damaged more than 40 buildings hours after Ukraine’s president announced that his military had retaken three more villages in another of the four regions annexed by Russia, Moscow’s latest battlefield reversal.

The Zaporizhzhia regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, who provided the casualty figure, said more than 20 people were rescued from the multistory apartment buildings. Rescuers who earlier took a 3-year-old girl to a hospital continued to search the rubble early Friday. Starukh wrote on Telegram that Russian forces used S-300 missiles in the attacks.

Russia has been reported to have converted the S-300 from its original use as a long-range antiaircraft weapon into a missile for ground attacks because of a shortage of other, more suitable weapons.

“Absolute meanness. Absolute evil,” Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskky said of the attacks, in a video speech to the inaugural summit of the European Political Community in Prague.

Zaporizhzhia is one of the four regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed as Russian territory in violation of international laws. The region is home to a sprawling nuclear power plant under Russian occupation; the city of the same name remains under control.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, announced Thursday after meeting with Zelenskyy in Kyiv that the U.N.’S atomic energy watchdog will increase the number of inspectors at the Zaporizhzhia plant from two to four.

Grossi talked with Ukrainian officials — and later will confer in Moscow with Russian officials — efforts to set up a protection zone around the nuclear power station. Grossi said mines appear to have been planted around the perimeter of the plant, which has been damaged during the war.

Putin signed a decree Wednesday declaring that Russia was taking over the six-reactor facility, a move Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called a criminal act that was “null and void.”

Ukrainian

Ukraine’s state nuclear operator, Energoatom, said it would continue to operate the plant, whose last operating reactor was shut down Sept. 11 because of frequent outages of external power needed to run critical safety systems. Transmission lines to the plant have been repeatedly shelled, and Grossi on Thursday reported shelling in an industrial area close to the plant’s access road.

Outside the battlefront, Russian authorities detained several hundred Ukrainians trying to flee Russian-occupied areas Wednesday near the Russian-estonian border, according to Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets. Citing the Estonian Ministry of Internal Affairs, he wrote on Facebook that Russian forces took the Ukrainians on trucks to an unknown destination.

Ukraine’s momentum mounts as Russia’s weakens Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Russia’s leaders they have already lost the war and will be forced to explain to their people the purpose of all this. Meanwhile, Russia’s military is reportedly divided over how to counter Ukraine’s advances, while recently mobilized Russian soldiers are decrying inhumane conditions, weapons shortages and mistreatment by officers. The Ukrainian military has retaken more than 155 square miles in the Kherson region and are advancing farther. The Russianappointed deputy leader of occupied Kherson reportedly attributed "gaps” on the battlefield to “incompetent commanders." Source: BBC At least seven Russian missile strikes rocked the city of Zaporizhizhia as Moscow looks to gain control over "annexed" regions as Ukrainian forces continue to advance. 100 miles Sources: The New York Times, The Associated Press, Getty, CNN, Fox News, NBC News, Politico, Stars and Stripes, USA Today, Al Jazeera, NPR, Ukrinform, Newsweek, Insider, BBC Ukrainian intelligence reported a significant number of Russian men taking drastic measures to avoid the draft, including paying not to be drafted, self-mutilation, faking illnesses and receiving certification of unfitness from hospitals. At the United Nations, Russia called for a secret ballot for a vote next week on a Western-backed resolution that would condemn its “attempted illegal annexation” and demand that Moscow reverse its actions. Russia apparently hopes to get more support from the 193 nations in the General Assembly if their votes are not public. JEFF GOERTZEN, SCNG