At least 21 people were killed after a Russian missile attack on a nine-story apartment building in the city of Dnipro, central Ukraine on Saturday, one of the largest losses of civilian lives far away. frontline since the beginning of the war.
Rescue workers were still digging through the rubble of the building on Sunday, according to video posted by Ukrainian emergency services at the scene of the strike.
Residential buildings are attack late Saturday afternoon as Russia launched dozens of rockets at cities across Ukraine in two waves of strikes that coincided with the Lunar New Year and disrupted the relative peace of recent days.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy chief of staff to the president of Ukraine, said that at least 21 people, including a child, were killed in the attack and emergency workers were still searching through the rubble on Sunday morning. .
At least 73 people were injured in the attack and at least 37 are still missing. Mr. Tymoshenko said at least 400 people lived in the large apartment building and its surroundings, and 72 apartments were destroyed in the attack.
In an image from the scene of the attack, a young woman holds a stuffed animal and a golden Christmas wreath as she stands in the rubble of a building waiting to be rescued.
in one parcel on a verified account on Instagram, a photo-sharing app, a woman named Anastasiia Shvets said her parents are still missing. She described how she escaped unharmed except for a small head wound and bruises on her leg.
“I don’t know what to say, no emotions, I feel nothing but a huge emptiness inside,” she wrote, sharing pictures from her hospital bed.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Mailar said the missile that hit the building was a Kh-22 cruise missile, also known as an X-22 missile. Five of these missiles were fired into Ukrainian territory on Saturday, with one hitting a building in Dnipro.
Immediately after the attack on the apartment building, pro-Russian news outlets and influential military bloggers argued that the apartment buildings were hit by rocket shrapnel after Ukrainian air defenses tried to intercept it.
But Ukrainian forces were quick to deny that, and evidence from the scene points to a direct attack on the building.
“Ukrainian armed forces have no weapons capable of shooting down this type of missile,” Mailar said, adding that since the Russian invasion in February, more than 210 missiles of this type have been used. in attacks on Ukrainian territory.
The same type of missile was used on a shopping mall in Kremenchuk in Junekilling 18 people.
The Soviet-era missiles weighed about 2,000 pounds, could be fired from long distances, and were used for anti-ship operations. They are also capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Ms. Mailar said the attack showed the need for anti-aircraft missile systems such as the Patriot system – something Ukraine has long lobbied its allies for.
Late last month, President Biden said that the United States would provide Ukraine with Patriot missile systems and that Ukrainian forces would begins training on the system in Oklahoma in the next few weeks.
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contribution report.
