A view shows a residential constructing heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine October 9, 2022.
Stringer | Reuters
A Russian barrage pounded apartment buildings and other targets within the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing at the least 17 people and wounding dozens, officials said Sunday.
The blasts in town, which stays under Ukrainian control but sits in a region Moscow has claimed as its own, blew out windows in adjoining buildings and left at the least one high-rise apartment constructing partially collapsed.
The multiple strikes got here after an explosion Saturday caused the partial collapse of a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia. The Kerch Bridge attack damaged a crucial supply route for the Kremlin’s faltering war effort in southern Ukraine, an artery that is also a towering symbol of Russia’s power within the region.
The rockets that pounded Zaporizhzhia overnight damaged at the least 20 private homes and 50 apartment buildings, city council Secretary Anatoliy Kurtev said. A minimum of 40 people were hospitalized, Kurtev said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian military confirmed the attack, saying there have been dozens of casualties.
Residents gathered behind police tape by a constructing where several floors collapsed from the blast, leaving a smoldering chasm at the least 40 feet wide where apartments once stood.
Tetyana Lazun’ko, 73, and her husband, Oleksii, took shelter within the hallway of their top-floor apartment after hearing sirens, warning of an attack. They were spared the worst of the blast that left them in fear and disbelief.
“There was an explosion. Every part was shaking,” Lazun’ko said. “Every part was flying and I used to be screaming.”
Distressed local residents sit at a site of a residential area heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine October 9, 2022.
Stringer | Reuters
Shards of glass, entire window and door frames and other debris covered the outside floors of the apartment where they’d lived since 1974. Lazun’ko wept inconsolably, wondering why their home in an area with no military infrastructure in sight was targeted.
“Why are they bombing us? Why?” she said.
Oleksii, who sat quietly, leaning on a picket cane, has suffered three strokes, Lazun’ko said. Breaking his silence, he said slowly, “That is international terrorism. You possibly can’t be saved from it.”
In recent weeks, Russia has repeatedly struck Zaporizhzhia, which is the capital of a region of the identical name that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed in violation of international law last week. A minimum of 19 people died in Russian missile strikes on apartment buildings in town on Thursday.
“Again, Zaporizhzhia. Again, merciless attacks on civilians, targeting residential buildings, in the midst of the night,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a Telegram post.
“Absolute meanness. Absolute evil. … From the one who gave this order, to everyone who carried out this order: they’ll answer. They have to. Before the law and the people,” he added
While Russia targeted Zaporizhzhia before Saturday’s explosion on the Crimea bridge, the attack was a big blow to Russia, which annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Nobody has claimed responsibility for damaging the bridge.
Putin signed a decree late Saturday tightening security for the bridge and for energy infrastructure between Crimea and Russia, and put Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, accountable for the hassle.
Some Russian lawmakers called for Putin to declare a “counterterrorism operation,” somewhat than the term “special military operation” which has downplayed the scope of fighting to odd Russians.
Hours after the explosion, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that the air force chief, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, would now command all Russian troops in Ukraine. Surovikin, who this summer was placed accountable for troops in southern Ukraine, had led Russian forces in Syria and was accused of overseeing a bombardment that destroyed much of Aleppo.
The 19-kilometer (12-mile) Kerch Bridge, on a strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is a logo of Moscow’s claims on Crimea and an important link to the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The $3.6 billion bridge, the longest in Europe, is significant to sustaining Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine. Putin himself presided over the bridge’s opening in May 2018.
This video grab taken and released on October 8, 2022 shows thick black smoke rising from a fireplace on the Kerch bridge that links Crimea to Russia.
– | Afp | Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a video address, not directly acknowledged the bridge attack but didn’t address its cause.
“Today was not a foul day and mostly sunny on our state’s territory,” he said. “Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Even though it was also warm.”
Zelenskyy said Ukraine wants a future “without occupiers. Throughout our territory, specifically in Crimea.”
Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian forces advanced or held the road within the east and south, but acknowledged “very, very difficult, very tough fighting” around town of Bakhmut within the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have claimed recent gains.
Train and automobile traffic over the bridge was temporarily suspended. Automobile traffic resumed Saturday afternoon on certainly one of the 2 links that remained intact, with the flow alternating in each direction, said Crimea’s Russia-backed leader, Sergey Aksyonov.
The Russian transport ministry said on Telegram Sunday that passenger train traffic between Crimea and the Russian mainland resumed overnight “in line with schedule.”
In a separate Telegram post Sunday, the ministry said automobile ferries also were working between Crimea and the mainland, with the primary crossing happening shortly before 2 a.m. local time (11 p.m. GMT).
While Russia seized areas north of Crimea early in its invasion of Ukraine and built a land corridor to it along the Sea of Azov, Ukraine is pressing a counteroffensive to reclaim that territory in addition to 4 regions Putin illegally annexed this month.
Russia has ramped up its strikes on town of Zaporizhzhia since formally absorbing the encircling region on September 29.
The regional governor of Zaporizhzhia reported that the death toll had risen to 32 after Russia’s missile strike on a civilian convoy making its way out of town on Sept. 30. In a Telegram post, Oleksandr Starukh that another person died within the hospital on Friday.
Rescuers and volunteers carry a bag with the body of a civilian person found dead at a residential area heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine October 9, 2022.
Stringer | Reuters
A component of the Zaporizhzhia region currently under Russian control is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power station. Fighting has repeatedly imperiled the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and Ukrainian authorities shut down its last operating reactor last month to forestall a radiation disaster.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, said Saturday that the Zaporizhzhia plant has since lost its last remaining external power source in consequence of renewed shelling and is now counting on emergency diesel generators.
The Crimean Peninsula is a well-liked destination for Russian tourists and residential to a Russian naval base. A Russian tourist association estimated that fifty,000 tourists were in Crimea on Saturday.