9 dead as Russia, Ukraine trade fresh strikes after deadly Kryvyi Rih attack. Photo credit: AP
The latest strikes came a day after a Russian attack on a shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih killed at least 16 people, according to Ukrainian authorities. A daytime attack killed three more people and wounded 15, while three others were wounded in an attack on a minibus in the regional capital, also called Zaporizhzhia, Zelenskyy said. Dnipropetrovsk regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said early Saturday that the death toll had risen to 16, with nine people still missing and 130 wounded.
In Kyiv, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said one person was killed and another wounded overnight when ballistic missiles struck railway infrastructure. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had targeted a locomotive depot. Russian drone strikes also killed one person overnight in the Zaporizhzhia region, officials said. In Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, authorities said two children were killed and two adults wounded in a Ukrainian drone strike.
The attacks came a day after Russian drones struck a shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy’s hometown. In a separate Russian ballistic missile strike on the Kyiv region, which surrounds the capital, two people were killed on Saturday afternoon, local authorities said.
He said the resulting fire, which spread across 9,000 square metres, had been extinguished and rescue operations were continuing.
Moscow’s forces have intensified ballistic missile strikes on the capital, according to the Associated Press, as Ukraine faces a shortage of US-made Patriot air defence interceptors, the only system in its arsenal capable of intercepting the missiles. Zelenskyy described the strike as a ‘double-tap strike’, alleging that an initial wave of drones was followed by a second wave as rescue workers responded. The latest strikes come amid an escalation in Russian attacks on Kyiv.