At least 18 people were killed and dozens injured in a Russian missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian officials confirmed. President Volodymyr Zelensky said nine of the dead were children. Zelensky grew up in the city.
Local officials said a ballistic missile hit a residential area. A video showed a dead body lying on a playground. Another video showed a large part of a flat in a 10-story building destroyed. The injured were seen lying in the street.
The Russian Defense Ministry later claimed that it had carried out a “precision missile strike” targeting a meeting of “unit commanders and Western trainers” at a restaurant. It also claimed that 85 people were killed in the incident, but provided no evidence.
Ukraine’s military responded by saying Russia was spreading disinformation to cover up its despicable crimes. Moscow fired an Iskander-M ballistic missile with a cluster warhead, causing the most casualties.
The attack on Friday evening was the deadliest in Kryvyi Rih since Russia began a full-scale offensive in 2022. Zelensky wrote on social media, “At least five buildings were damaged in Friday’s attack. The only reason the attacks continue is that Russia does not want a ceasefire, and we see it.”
Kryvyi Rih’s defense chief, Oleksandr Vilkul, said a residential area had been hit. “The missile exploded… many more people were injured. Children died in or near the playground,” he said.
Serhiy Lysak, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region where Kryvyi Rih is located, said more than 40 people were treated for injuries, and the youngest was just three months old.
Oleksandr Vilkul, the defense chief of Kryvyi Rih, later added, “There have been massive drone strikes in the city, causing fires in at least four places.”
“An elderly woman died in a house hit by a drone,” he said. “Five more people were injured elsewhere.”
Military chiefs from both the UK and France met with Zelensky in Kiev earlier in the day to discuss plans to deploy foreign peacekeepers to Ukraine as part of a possible ceasefire deal. But there were no signs of abating the violence.
Source: BBC