Ukraine officials said Russia launched another wave of missile attacks on Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least 18 people in a high-rise apartment block in the eastern city of Dnipro and damaging energy infrastructure in six regions.
A rescue operation continued on Sunday morning in Dnipro, where a missile strike destroyed a nine-storey residential building. The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Valentin Reznichenko, said another 73 people were wounded in the attack and 40 were in hospital.
“The fate of about 40 more people is unknown,” Reznichenko Wrote on Telegram messaging app.
Other cities including Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa were also affected in Saturday’s Russian missile attacks, which once again targeted Ukraine’s energy facilities. Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Saturday that the shelling had caused emergency power cuts in most areas.
“The next few days are going to be difficult. Energy workers are already working on restoring the power supply,” Galushchenko wrote on facebook,
Saturday’s attacks, which marked Ukraine’s Orthodox New Year, were the biggest in two weeks. of Ukraine Ministry of Defense said That Russia launched 57 missile strikes on Saturday, as well as 69 from rocket launchers. The ministry said Ukrainian forces destroyed 26 missiles.
The attacks came as the UK government confirmed it would send a squadron of 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, in what Downing Street called “the start of a gear change” in support of Kyiv. Downing Street said the UK would also send 30 AS90 self-propelled guns and within days begin training Ukrainian troops on the operation of the new equipment.
In his nightly address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Dnipro attack, saying that work to clear the debris was ongoing. He said that in order to defeat Russia on the battlefield, Ukraine needed “the weapons that are in the warehouses of our allies, that are so waiting for the troops.”