A Russian missile attack on a small town in southeastern Ukraine and the ensuing fire killed at least seven civilians, including three childrenThe country’s authorities said as they surveyed on Sunday the death toll from two days of intense Russian attacks.
Yuriy Borzenko, head doctor of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Children’s Hospital, said in a phone interview that, in addition to the dead, dozens of others, including a pregnant woman and five 14-year-old girls, is being treated for injuries following an attack in the town of Vilniansk, southeastern Ukraine, which occurred on Saturday.
The girls were walking together in the afternoon sunlight, Dr. Borzenko said, when explosions from artillery shells tore through the town center, engulfing shops, cars and homes in flames . Shrapnel had lodged in the skull of one of the girls, who was in a coma, he said, “still between life and death”.
“Her parents are in very bad shape, I just saw them,” he added.
As the attacks continued, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine reaffirmed request to relax restrictions about using a long-range US missile called ATACMS so Ukraine could target fighter jets at Russian air bases before they take to the skies to drop bombs.
“Long-range strikes and modern air defense systems are the foundation for stopping Russia’s daily terrorism,” he said. a statement accompanying the video shows the aftermath of some of the worst attacks of the week.
The attack in Vilniansk was one of a series of attacks across Ukraine that have left at least 24 civilians dead since Friday evening, according to local officials and emergency workers. and emergency workers, and said more people were injured.
Also on Saturday, nine people living in front-line villages in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, were killed in Russian shelling. local officials said. Officials added that at least six more people were killed in the shelling on Sunday morning.
Three powerful guided bombs dropped from Russian warplanes exploded on Saturday in the town of Derhachi, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, hitting five multi-storey apartment buildings. Ukrainian officials said. No deaths were reported but two elderly men were said to have been hospitalized with shrapnel injuries.
Mr. Zelensky said on Sunday that about 800 such powerful bombs, filled with hundreds of pounds of explosives, had been dropped by Russian warplanes in the past week.
Although the Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down 10 Russian drones on Saturday, a 67-year-old man in the southern Kherson region was killed in one such attack, local officials said.
A Russian missile also crashed into a high-rise apartment building in Dnipro, central Ukraine, on Friday evening. After days of searching the rubble, the lifeguard said On Sunday, one person was confirmed dead and two more remained missing.
All attacks – reported by local officials by telephone, the National Police, emergency services and local hospitals, along with the aftermath of many attacks reported by news agencies Video recorded by Ukraine – took place within 48 hours and only partly reflects the daily violence.
While the Russian military has intensified its attacks on the front lines, it has also continued to launch attacks across Ukraine, exploiting gaps in its air defenses, with the aim of draining the country’s resources, disrupting its economy and breaking the morale of its people.
The total number of civilians killed in June is not yet available, but May was the month with the highest number of civilian deaths in Ukraine in a year. according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission.
Mission investigators reported that at least 174 civilians were killed and 690 others injured in conflict-related violence that month.
The high death toll coincided with the continuous bombardment of Ukraine’s power grid, making life difficult for millions of people who already had to endure power outages lasting hours each day.
Ildar Saliieev, head of DTEK, one of the country’s major private power companies, said Russia regularly attacks thermal power plants across Ukraine, causing 90% of the power generation capacity of these plants to fail. lost. said in a statement.
“Due to the massive scale of destruction, repairs will take years, not months,” Mr. Salieiev wrote.
Ukrainian officials are trying to prepare the public for another difficult winter, and they are calling on international allies to speed up the delivery of air defense systems that could limit further damage and save lives. .
Even in the best-case scenario — no further major damage to the power grid — energy officials have said Ukrainians should prepare for a winter of widespread blackouts.
Serhii Kovalenko, head of Yasno, another private energy company in Ukraine, said that it looks like there will be significant daily shortages in the energy system as winter approaches.
“If critical infrastructure is repaired and remaining supplies are then rationed, consumers could face a 50 percent shortfall,” he said in a statement. “Therefore, the baseline forecast is 12 hours without power.”
Anna Lukinova Contributing report from Kiev. Nataliia Novosolova research contribution
