KYIV: A Russian ballistic missile strike on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home city of Kryvyi Rig killed 18 people, among them nine children, authorities said.
Sixty-one people were injured, the Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Sergiy Lysak said Saturday after emergency operations were completed overnight.
The missile struck a residential area near a children’s playground on Friday, according to Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rig’s military administration.
Unverified videos on social media appeared to show bodies lying on a street, while another showed a plume of smoke rising into the evening sky.
Social media video from the scene showed a car in flames, while people could be heard shouting.
“18… that is how many people were killed by the Russians when they launched a missile at Kryvyi Rig. Among them were nine children,“ Lysak said on Telegram.
He 12 children were injured in Friday’s attack.
“This is the kind of pain you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy,“ said Lysak.
Russia’s defence ministry said it “delivered a precision strike with a high-explosive missile at a restaurant” in the city “where commanders of formations and Western instructors were meeting”.
It said Saturday that Russian its air defence units had intercepted and destroyed 49 Ukrainian drones overnight.
‘Whole world sees it’
US President Donald Trump has been pushing for a speedy end to the more than three-year war since taking office, but his administration has failed to broker a ceasefire despite talks with both sides.
Zelensky said the missile attack on the city showed Russia had no interest in stopping its full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022.
“There is only one reason why this continues — Russia does not want a ceasefire and we see it. The whole world sees it,“ he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for an unconditional and full ceasefire in March, while the Kremlin has made a US-proposed truce in the Black Sea dependent on the West lifting certain sanctions.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier on Friday that Trump was not “going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations” with Russia over the invasion.
“We will know soon enough, in a matter of weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not,“ he said.
Zelensky accused Russia of regarding diplomacy as an “empty word” in his evening address.
“A ceasefire could have been reached by now and it is Putin who rejects it,“ he said.
‘Deliberate strike’
Kryvyi Rig, in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, is about 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the front line, and has regularly been targeted by Russian drones and missiles.
Zelensky was born in the industrial city, which had a pre-war population of around 600,000 people.
Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian official tasked with countering disinformation, described the missile involved in the attack on Kryvyi Rig as an “Iskander”.
The Iskander is a Russian ballistic missile system that can have a range of up to 500 kilometres (311 miles).
“This is a deliberate strike to kill a large number of people,“ Kovalenko said.
In separate drone attack on Kryvyi Rig, Lysak said a 56-year-old woman was killed and seven other people injured.
