DNIPRO, Ukraine: Rescuers called off a search Tuesday for victims of a Russian missile attack on an apartment building in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, with 20 people still missing and a funeral being held in the grieving community.
Following the massacre, Ukrainians proceeded with talks to obtain more Western arms, and Ukraine’s army chief Valery Zaluzny met with Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley in person for the first time in Poland.
At least 45 people, including six children, were killed in a Russian assault on the eastern city of Dnipro over the weekend, Ukrainian officials said.
The youngest child was 11 months old, officials said, and one of the bodies recovered from the rubble on Tuesday was that of a child.
The toll made Saturday’s attack one of the deadliest since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last February.
The Kremlin has denied responsibility for the attack, which also injured 79 people.
Several hundred Dnipro residents gathered to pay their last respects to Mykhaylo Korenovsky, a Ukrainian boxing coach who was killed in the barrage.
“He made many starts in life,” said Taras Ivanov, whose son trained with Korenovsky.
“Everything inside me is shaking,” the father told AFP, calling the coach a “legend”.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his vow that everyone who “caused this terror” would be found and held to account.
At 1:00 pm (1100 GMT), emergency services said the search and rescue operation at the site was complete.
“Twenty people are still missing,” he added.
In Moscow, at a monument to Ukrainian poet Lesia Ukrainka, some residents lay flowers in the snow in memory of those killed in Dnipro.
Kyiv has demanded more weapons for its defence, and received a pledge of British tanks over the weekend. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s army chief Zaluzny said he met with Miele in Poland and “outlined the urgent needs of Ukraine’s armed forces.”
The pair “discussed the unprovoked and ongoing Russian aggression in Ukraine and exchanged perspectives and assessments,” Joint Staff spokesman Dave Butler said.
“The chairman reaffirmed unwavering support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
Germany announced on 5 January that it was following the United States in sending Patriot missile defense batteries to Ukraine.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte signaled his “intent” on Tuesday during a meeting with President Joe Biden to assist in the effort.
“It is our intention to engage with what you’re doing with Germany on the Patriots project, the air-defense system,” Rutte told Biden at the White House.
Putin warned that more ordnance would only intensify the fighting and the Kremlin vowed to burn the material.
US elder statesman Henry Kissinger said on Tuesday that Russia’s invasion shows there is no longer any point in keeping Ukraine out of NATO, a long-standing ambition of Kyiv that he has previously opposed.
The Dnipro attack triggered the resignation of a high-profile Ukrainian official who had sparked outrage by suggesting air defenses that could have been responsible had intercepted a Russian missile, which then fell on the building.
Ukraine’s military said the apartment block was hit by an X-22 Russian missile, which does not have the capability to shoot down.
Meanwhile fighting on the front line continued on Tuesday, with AFP journalists in the eastern town of Bakhmut witnessing heavy shelling.
Outside the city, troops dug new trenches while tanks and armored vehicles passed by.
Referring to the infamous World War I battle, Ivan, a military ambulance driver, said, “It’s like Verdun.”
Even as gunfire echoed in the streets of Bakhmut, volunteers were busy providing food and shelter to some 8,000 people living in the town on Tuesday, many without electricity or gas but defying recommendations to evacuate Were telling
Among them was Tetyana Starkova, 67, who began clutching a paper cup of steaming tea in a busy humanitarian center where a Baptist group sang religious songs and residents charged phones and warmed themselves by the stove. .
“We sit here when it’s warm then we go home and get under the blankets,” she said.
Nearby, uncertainty still surrounds the fate of the war-torn town of Soledar that Russia claims to have seized.
The capture of Soledar could improve the position of the Russian forces as they have been their main target since October, at the transport crossroads near Bakhmut.
Both sides have acknowledged heavy losses in the fighting for the city, and a Ukrainian military spokesman said on Tuesday that fighting was continuing.
Kirill Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said two people were killed in Russian shelling in the southern regions of Mykolaiv and Kherson.
He also said two civilians were killed in Donetsk, the eastern region at the center of recent fighting.