KYIV, Ukraine
At least six people, including
a 10-year-old girl and her mother, have been killed by a Russian missile strike
on the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.
Ukraine's interior minister
said 69 others were injured when missiles slammed into a high-rise building and
a university on Monday.
Regional governor Serhiy Lysak
declared a day of mourning for those lost.
The home city of President
Volodymyr Zelensky, Kryvyi Rih has been a consistent target for Russian
strikes.
In June, 11 people died and 28
others were injured in the city after Russia launched a "massive missile
attack" on civilian buildings.
The latest attack saw dozens
of people hospitalised, including children aged from four to 17-years-old.
President Zelensky, who grew
up in the city of 600,000 people, said a pair of missiles smashed into the
residential apartment block and a university building early on Monday morning.
Locals told the Reuters news
agency that the attack took place shortly after 09:00 local time (07:00 GMT).
A video posted by President
Zelensky showed that much of the high-rise building had been completely
demolished by the strike, with a large scar running up the structure. But
officials said around 150 people managed to escape the blast unharmed.
Writing on Telegram, the
Ukrainian leader said more than 350 people were involved in rescue operations
and Mr Lysak said later that another 30 people were rescued from the building
by the emergency workers.
President Zelensky added that
"dozens of people" had been left traumatised and injured by the
attack, but vowed that "this terror will not frighten us or break
us".
In recent weeks, Russia has
again been stepping up attacks on civilian targets, and Mykhailo Podolyak - a
top adviser to Mr Zelensky - accused Moscow of launching "genocidal"
attacks on Ukrainians.
"International law will
never work if the aggressor does not see a real power behind it. The power
begins with closing the Ukrainian skies with missile defence and air defence
systems," he wrote on Twitter.
Moscow has consistently denied
that it seeks out civilian targets. But Western leaders, including US President
Joe Biden, have accused Russia of frequently bombarding areas with "no
military purpose".
Earlier this month, the UN
said there have been some 25,671 civilian casualties since Russian launched its
invasion of Ukraine last year, but the true figure is likely to be far higher.
There will be no forgiveness!
Never!" Mr Lysak wrote in a Telegram post on Monday. Russia would pay, he
said, for "every innocent person killed" and "the suffering of
our people".
Elsewhere, in the southern
region of Kherson, the head of President Zelensky's office, Andriy Yermak, said
four people were killed in what local officials called merciless Russian
shelling.
The Kherson military administration
said one of those killed was a 60-year-old utilities worker whose team had come
under fire. Several others were injured in the blast.
And a drone attack has been
reported in Russia's border region of Bryansk - with Governor Alexander Bogomaz
saying a police station was hit.
On Saturday, Russian officials
said three Ukrainian drones were downed in Moscow - the latest in a series of
drone assaults on the Russian capital.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin
blamed Ukraine for the attack, in which two office blocks were damaged,
although there were no casualties.
President Zelensky warned that
war was coming back to Russia, and that attacks on Russian territory were an
"inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process" of the war between
the two countries.
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