APT. TOWER MASSACRE
At least 29 killed in Russian missile strike, say Ukrainians
A devastating Russian missile strike on an apartment tower in southeastern Ukraine claimed the lives of at least 29 people, authorities said Sunday as rescuers raced in frigid weather to pull victims from the rubble.
The deaths in Dnipro from the Russian attack Saturday were the most civilians killed in one place in Ukraine since an attack in late September to the south in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project.
Russian forces also attacked Kyiv, the first attack on the Ukrainian capital since Jan. 1, and the city of Kharkiv in the northeast after a two-week lull in air strikes waged since October on Ukraine’s power infrastructure and urban centers.
A Russian Defense Ministry statement Sunday declared that “the goal of the attack has been achieved,” but did not mention the residential apartment building. Russia has denied targeting civilians in its 11-month-old invasion of Ukraine.
Rescue workers in Dnipro used a crane to reach people trapped on upper floors of the nine-story apartment tower that was home to some 1,700 residents. People trapped in the debris were signaling for help using lights from their mobile phones.
Residents joined in the rescue effort and donated food and clothes to those left homeless by the heartless attack.
“This is clearly terrorism and all this is simply not human,” said Artem Myzychenko, a resident helping clear the rubble.
One survivor of the apartment tower attack, Ivan Garnuk, said he was shocked that the Russians would strike a residential building.
“There are no military facilities here. There is nothing here,” he said. “There is no air defense, there are no military bases here. It just hit civilians, innocent people.”
Russian forces also attacked a residential area Sunday in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, authorities in the southern region said. Early reports said two people were wounded.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that at least 73 people had been wounded in the Dnipro attack, and the city government said 43 people were reported missing.
“Search and rescue operations and the dismantling of dangerous structural elements continues around the clock. We continue to fight for every life,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian authorities said the Russians fired 33 cruise missiles in Saturday’s barrage, 21 of which were shot down.
The missile that slammed into the Dnipro apartments was a Kh-22, and Ukrainian defenses do not have a system that can intercept the large missiles. The Kh-22s, which can travel up to 370 miles, have been fired by the Russians more than 200 times in the war, according to Ukrainian authorities.
A squadron of 14 tanks and also artillery will be sent to Ukraine from Britain, which announced Saturday that it was stepping up its support for the embattled Eastern European nation.
Ukrainian and British officials said they hoped the move would compel other Western nations to provide more weaponry as well. Ukraine has been asking Western allies for heavier tanks for months.
Zelenskyy tweeted his thanks to Britain “for the decisions that will not only strengthen us on the battlefield, but also send the right signal to other partners.”
The Ukrainian president hopes to address a high-level meeting of the United Nations on the eve of the first anniversary of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, a senior Foreign Ministry official said late last week.
It would be only his second trip outside Ukraine since the invasion, after he paid a surprise visit last month to Washington to meet President Biden and members of Congress.
Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk Province, meanwhile, was beset by fierce fighting as Russian military forces eye the capture of the city of Bakhmut. Moscow has portrayed the battle for Bakhmut as critical to control of the eastern region of the Donbas as a means to stop Ukrainian forces from launching counterattacks.