Deadly Russian missile strikes kill civilians in southern Ukraine town
Russian missiles slammed into a town in southern Ukraine, killing seven civilians, including children, and wounding dozens more, local authorities reported.
Ukrainian officials published photos of bodies stretched out under picnic blankets in a park in Vilniansk, and deep craters in the blackened earth next to the charred, twisted remains of a building.
Thirty-six people were wounded in Saturday evening’s attack, authorities said. A day of mourning has been declared on Sunday.
Vilniansk is in the Zaporizhzhia region, less than 20 miles (30km) from the local capital and north of the frontlines, as Russian forces continue to occupy part of the province.
Local governor Ivan Fedorov said three children were among the dead and a further nine were wounded.
In a separate Telegram post hours earlier, Fedorov said the strike damaged a shop, residential buildings, and an unspecified “critical infrastructure” facility in Vilniansk, which had a population of about 14,300 before Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Russia continues to stretch out Ukrainian forces in several areas along the 600-mile (1,000km) frontline. Moscow has stepped up airstrikes in a bid to drain Ukraine’s resources, often targeting energy facilities and other vital infrastructure.
In the aftermath of the Vilniansk attack, the Ukrainian resident, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called on Kyiv’s western partners to bolster its air defences and long-range munitions to deter Russian attacks.
In Ukraine’s war-torn eastern Donetsk region, eight civilians died and 14 more suffered wounds on Saturday and overnight, according to the local governor, Vadym Filashkin, as near-daily shelling continues in much of the province. Shelling also killed one civilian and wounded five more over the same period in the southern Kherson region, its governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, reported on Telegram.
According to local governor Oleh Syniehubov, four people were wounded in the Kharkiv province in the north-east, the site of fierce battles in recent months as Russia launched a cross-border push that threatened Ukraine’s second-largest city.
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Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry on Sunday claimed its forces overnight shot down three dozen Ukrainian drones over six regions in south-western Russia.
Debris from one drone fell on a village in the Kursk region, blowing out windows and damaging roofs and fences, according to a Telegram post by the regional governor, Aleksey Smirnov. In the city of Lipetsk, further north, a drone was shot down as it appeared to target the industrial zone, local governor Igor Artamonov reported. There were no casualties in either case.