Russian missiles have rained down on a central Ukrainian city overnight, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than two dozen in a warehouse and an apartment building, regional officials said.
The attack in Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s home city, comes as Ukrainian forces are in the early stages of a counter-offensive, more than 15 months after Russia invaded.
Russian forces have unleashed overnight missile strikes repeatedly against targets across Ukraine in recent weeks, and Tuesday’s toll was among the highest from a single attack.
In late April, missile strikes hit an apartment building in the central city of Uman, killing 23 people, including six children.
Images from the latest missile attack relayed by Mr Zelenskiy on his Telegram channel showed firefighters battling a blaze as flames poked through broken windows in the damaged apartment building. Charred and damaged vehicles littered the ground.
“More terrorist missiles,” he wrote. “Russian killers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people.”
The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, wrote on Telegram that the bodies of seven people were recovered from a private company’s warehouse, and “another four destinies were cut short” at the apartment building. He said search operations had been called off.
Kryvyi Rih mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said on the social media app that 28 people were wounded.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its military fired missiles at Ukrainian operational reserves and a depot with Western weapons and ammunition. It said all targeted facilities were hit.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was attacked with Iranian-made Shahed drones, and the surrounding region was shelled, local governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram. The shelling wounded two civilians in the town of Shevchenkove, south east of Kharkiv.
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, separately reported early on Tuesday that the drone strike damaged a utilities business and a warehouse in the city’s north east.
The Kyiv military administration reported that the capital came under fire as well on Tuesday, but the incoming missiles were destroyed by air defences and there were no reports of any casualties there.
Air defences overnight shot down 10 out of 14 cruise missiles and one of four Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russian forces, Ukraine’s General Staff said on its Facebook page.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, told Ukrainian TV that its offensive operations were ongoing in four areas in the south and east: near the town of Orikhiv in the southern Zaporizhzhia region; in the eastern Donetsk region near the city of Bakhmut; around the town of Marinka; and near Lyman in the Luhansk region.
The head of Ukraine’s ground troops said the country’s forces were “moving forward” outside Bakhmut. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote on Telegram that Russian forces are “losing positions on the flanks”.
For weeks, Ukrainian officials have been reporting small gains west of Bakhmut, which was largely devastated in the war’s longest and bloodiest battle before Moscow’s forces took control last month.
Over the last day, nearly a dozen frontline towns and villages in Ukrainian-held areas of Donetsk came under increased shelling as Ukrainian troops pushed forward, Mr Zelenskiy’s office said.
Also on Tuesday, the Russian Defence Ministry published a video showing what it said was a German-made Leopard 2 tank and US-made Bradley fighting vehicle captured from Ukrainian forces.
According to the ministry, the video was shot by Russian soldiers after fierce fighting in Zaporizhzhia, and a soldier is seen pointing at the immobilised vehicles. It was not immediately possible to verify the video’s authenticity.
