At least 12 people were killed and 49 injured, including six children, as a result of shelling in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, the region’s governor has said.
A nine-storey building was partially destroyed overnight, five other residential buildings levelled and many more damaged in 12 Russian missile attacks, said Oleksandr Starukh, the governor of the Zaporizhzhia region.
“There may be more people under the rubble,” Mr Starukh said on the Telegram messaging app.
“A rescue operation is under way at the scene. Eight people have already been rescued.”
City official Anatoliy Kurtev had said earlier at least 17 people were killed when missiles hit a high-rise apartment complex and buildings.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
The city is about 125km from a Russian-held nuclear power plant that is Europe’s largest. Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for shelling at the Ukrainian-operated facility, which has damaged buildings and threatens a catastrophic nuclear accident.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Zaporizhzhia “is subjected to massive rocket attacks every day… (it’s a) deliberate crime”.
Moscow claims to have annexed the region even though its forces do not control all of it.
Ukraine said at least 30 people were killed last week when a convoy of civilian cars in the Zaporizhzhia region was shelled in an attack Kyiv blamed on Russia.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is pushing for a protection zone to be set up around the nuclear plant to prevent further shelling.
Even though Zaporizhzhia’s six reactors are shut down the nuclear fuel in them still needs cooling to prevent a nuclear meltdown. That requires a constant supply of electricity.
“The resumption of shelling, hitting the plant’s sole source of external power, is tremendously irresponsible. The Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant must be protected,” the IAEA quoted its chief Rafael Grossi as saying in a statement.
Mr Grossi was in Kyiv on Thursday and is due to go to Russia early next week.
“I will soon travel to the Russian Federation, and then return to Ukraine, to agree on a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the plant. This is an absolute and urgent imperative,” the IAEA quoted Mr Grossi as saying.
Russian news agencies quoted Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin as saying the divers would start work at 6am (4am Irish time), with a more detailed survey above the waterline expected to be complete by day’s end.
“The situation is manageable – it’s unpleasant, but nonfatal,” Crimea’s Russian governor, Sergei Aksyonov, told reporters.
“Of course, emotions have been triggered and there is a healthy desire to seek revenge.”
He said late yesterday that authorities were assessing whether it is safe to let busses through.
People who want to get back to Russia could take a car or a ferry to cities such as Krasnodar and Anapa, he added.
The peninsula had a month’s worth of fuel and more than two months’ worth of food, he said.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces in southern Ukraine could be “fully supplied” through existing land and sea routes.
The blast aroused intense excitement and speculation from Ukrainians and others on social media, but Mr Zelensky made no direct mention of it in his nightly address, and officials made no claim of responsibility.
Mr Zelensky did say that the weather in Crimea was cloudy, but “however cloudy it is, Ukrainians know… our future is sunny”.
“This is a future without occupiers, across our territory, particularly in Crimea,” he added.
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and bridge linking the region to Russia’s transport network was opened with great fanfare four years later by President Vladimir Putin.
Kyiv demands that Russian forces leave the Black Sea peninsula, as well as Ukrainian territory they seized in the invasion Putin launched in February.
The bridge is a major artery for the Russian forces that control most of southern Ukraine’s Kherson region and for the Russian naval port of Sevastopol, whose governor told locals, “Keep calm. Don’t panic.”
Mr Putin signed a decree yesterday instructing tighter security for the bridge as well as the infrastructure supplying electricity and natural gas to Crimea and ordered an investigation.
12 killed, dozens hurt in Zaporizhzhia missile attack
Source: Viral Trends Report
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