The aftermath of a Russian missile strike on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia that killed at least seven people and injured 22 in a medical clinic as part of a wider airborne assault across the east of Ukraine that killed at least one other person and injured another 35 people. Photo courtesy Zaporizhzhia Regional Administration handout/EPA-EFE
At least eight people were killed and 57 injured in Russian missile and airstrikes across eastern Ukraine, authorities said Wednesday.
All but one of the fatalities and 22 of the injuries occurred when a missile destroyed a medical clinic in the downtown of the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to officials who said the attack also damaged at least 20 residential buildings. Advertisement
Two women pulled from the rubble during the night were being treated in the hospital but there were fears the death toll could rise after police said rescuers were still trying to locate and extract five people believed to be buried beneath what remains of the clinic.
The tragedy prompted authorities to declare a day of mourning across Zaporizhzhia with Regional State Administration head Ivan Federov pledging that “every Ukrainian life taken and mutilated” would be avenged.
“We will not forgive!” said Federov.
Russian strikes on residential population centers in Kherson province killed one person and injured 15, the province’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said in a social media update.
Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the frontline Kharkiv province, said that at least 17 people were injured and 16 residential buildings damaged after two Russian Iskander-M short-range ballistic missiles struck the town of Zlatopil, 50 miles south of the capital, Kharkiv. Advertisement
A 63-year-old man and a 59-year-old woman in the villages of Zapadne and Ivashky, according to Syniehubov.
Donetsk provincial governor Vadym Filashkin reported on social media that one person, a civilian, had been injured in a strike on the town of Kostiantynivka, 15 miles southeast of Kramatorsk.
Speaking after the Zaporizhzhia missile strike, President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed frustration over hold-ups in air defense systems and ammunition being supplied by Ukraine’s Western allies.
“We don’t have enough systems now to protect our country from Russian missiles. But our partners do have these systems. We repeat, again and again, that air defense systems should save lives, not collect dust in storage bases,” he said in his nightly address.
He said he was working on a schedule of meetings and negotiations with partners for December “to get as much done as possible,”
Separately, Moscow and Kyiv traded blame over a drone attack Tuesday that badly damaged a U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency vehicle in a convoy en route to the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant for an inspection team rotation.
The driver and a security officer on board escaped unhurt, but IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi took to YouTube to condemn the incident, which occurred close to the front line, calling it an “unacceptable” attack on the staff of the U.N. nuclear watchdog working to prevent a nuclear accident during the military conflict. Advertisement
“I have said in the past that attacking a nuclear power plant is a no go. Attacking those who care for the nuclear safety and security of these plants is also absolutely unacceptable,” said Grossi.
