Zaporizhia, Ukraine (AFP) – A Russian missile barrage led to the destruction of apartment buildings and homes in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said Sunday that the city of Zaporizhia has killed at least 17 people and wounded dozens, as Moscow presses to establish control over the illegally annexed territory.
The Ukrainian air force said the explosions, which collapsed at least one apartment building and smashed windows of others, came from six missiles fired in Russian-occupied areas in the Zaporizhia region. The region is one of four countries Russia declared affiliated with it this month, but the regional capital remains under Ukrainian control.
The multiple strikes came after an explosion on Saturday caused a partial collapse of the bridge linking Crimea to Russia. The Kerch Bridge attack damaged an important supply route for the Kremlin’s faltering war effort In Ukraine, a prominent symbol of Russia’s power in the region.
From behind the police tape, stunned residents watched as emergency crews tried to reach the upper floors of a building that had been hit directly. The attack collapsed several floors, leaving a burning hole at least 40 feet wide where the apartments stood. Several hours later, the upper floors also collapsed.
In a neighboring apartment building, a barrage of windows and doors blew out their frames in a radius of hundreds of feet. City Council Secretary Anatoly Kortev said that at least 20 private homes and 50 apartment buildings were damaged, and at least 40 people were hospitalized.
Mukula Markovich of Zaporizhia, 76, said he and his wife hid under a blanket when they heard incoming missiles and explosions. He said, “There was an explosion, and then another explosion.” Then, in a flash, their fourth-floor apartment was gone, said Markovich, sobbing.
“I don’t know when it will be rebuilt,” he said. “I was left without an apartment at the end of my life.”
Russian officials did not immediately comment on the strikes. After Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Zaporozhye region last week, Russia has repeatedly bombed the city of the same name. At least 19 people died Russian missile strikes on residential buildings in the city on Thursday.
“Again, Zaporizhzhia. And again, merciless attacks on civilians, targeting apartment buildings, in the middle of the night,” wrote Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in one of his telegrams on Telegram.
“Absolute meanness. Absolute evil. … Who has given this order, to everyone who has carried out this order: they will answer. They must. Before the law and the people.”
Tetiana Lazonko, 73, and her husband, Oleksiy, sheltered in the hallway of their upstairs apartment after the first sirens and then an explosion shook the building and unleashed their property.
Lazonko wept relentlessly as the couple examined the damage to their home since 1974, wondering why an area with no military infrastructure in sight had been targeted.
Why are they bombing us? Why?” she said.
While Russia targeted Zaporizhia before Saturday’s explosion on the Crimean bridge, the attack was 12 miles across It was a huge blow to Moscow. Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 after a hastily held local vote, a move that led to sanctions from the United States and the European Union.
Putin personally opened the $3.7 million Kerch Bridge in May 2018 by driving a truck across it in a symbol of Moscow’s claims to Crimea. The bridge, the longest in Europe, is vital to the continuation of Russian military operations in southern Ukraine.
Crimea is a popular destination for Russian tourists and home to a Russian naval base. A Russian tourist association estimated that 50,000 tourists were in Crimea on Saturday.
Putin signed a decree late Saturday tightening security measures for the bridge and energy infrastructure between Crimea and Russia, placing Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, in charge of the effort.
Some Russian lawmakers have called on Putin to declare an “anti-terror operation,” rather than the term “special military operation” that reduced the scope of the fighting for ordinary Russians.
Hours after the explosion, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that the commander of the Air Force, General Sergei Sorovikin, would now command all Russian forces in Ukraine. Surovkin, who this summer was appointed in charge of forces in southern Ukraine, commanded Russian forces in Syria and was accused of overseeing the bombing that devastated much of Aleppo.
No party has claimed responsibility for damaging the bridge. Zelenskyy, in a video title, indirectly admitted to the bridge attack but did not go into its causes.
“Today was not a bad day and it was mostly sunny on our state land,” he said. “Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Although it was also warm.”
The movement of trains and cars across the bridge has been temporarily suspended. Russia-backed leader of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said vehicular traffic resumed Saturday afternoon on one of the two links that remained unchanged, with the flow alternating in each direction.
The Russian Transport Ministry said in a Telegram Sunday that passenger train traffic between Crimea and the Russian mainland resumed overnight “as per schedule”. In a separate post on Telegram Sunday, the ministry said car ferries are also operating between Crimea and the mainland.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said videos of the bridge indicate that damage from the blast “is likely to increase friction in Russian logistics for some time” but not cripple Russia’s ability to equip its forces in Ukraine. .
“The collapsed passage of the land bridge will limit the movements of the Russian army until it is repaired, forcing some Russian forces to rely on the ferry line for some time,” the institute said. “It is likely that Russian forces will still be able to transport heavy military equipment by rail.”
While Russia captured areas of northern Crimea early in its invasion of Ukraine and built a land corridor along the Sea of Azov, Ukraine is pressing a counterattack to retake those and other parts of Ukraine illegally annexed by Putin this month.
On Sunday morning, the Ukrainian army said that violent clashes are continuing around the towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the eastern Donetsk region, as Russian forces announced some recent territorial gains.
In its regular update on social media, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not acknowledge any territorial loss, but said that the “most tense situation” over the entire territory of Ukraine had been observed around the two cities.
The governor of Zaporizhzhya province reported that the death toll had risen to 32 after the Russian missile strike on a civilian convoy making its way out of the city on September 30. .
Part of the Zaporizhzhia region currently under Russian control is home to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. The fighting has repeatedly put the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhya at risk, and Ukrainian authorities last month shut down its last working reactor to prevent a radiological disaster.
International Atomic Energy AgencyThe United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency said on Saturday that the Zaporizhzhya plant has since lost its last external source of energy as a result of renewed bombing and is now dependent on emergency diesel generators.
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Shukrik reported from Kyiv
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