(Al Jazeera Media Network) At least 18 people, including nine children, have been killed in a Russian missile attack on a residential area of the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, local authorities said, in one of Moscow’s deadliest strikes this year.
Friday’s attack on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, which comes as United States President Donald Trump is pushing for a ceasefire in the war, damaged residential blocks and caused fires, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The dead and wounded could be seen lying on the pavement, one of them by a playground, in unverified videos circulating on Telegram as grey smoke rose into the sky.
At least 50 people were wounded, the emergency services said, adding that the figure was growing. More than 30 people, including a three-month-old baby, were admitted to hospital, Lysak said.
Russian forces used a ballistic missile for the strike, according to human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.
Such weapons take just minutes to reach their targets and are difficult to shoot down for all but high-end air defences.
“Not a single military facility – just civilian infrastructure,” Lubinets wrote on Telegram.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had launched a missile at a gathering of Ukrainian servicemen and foreign instructors in the city.
“As a result of the strike, enemy losses total up to 85 servicemen and officers of foreign countries, as well as up to 20 vehicles,” the ministry said on Telegram.
Zelenskyy said on Friday that the rescue effort was under way and called on the West to exert greater pressure on Moscow.
“The whole world sees it. Each missile, every attack drone proves that Russia seeks only war,” he wrote on Telegram.
Earlier, Russia launched a barrage of drones in an overnight attack, killing at least four people and injuring 35 in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, regional officials said.
In the fourth such strike on the city so far this week, Russian drones hit residential quarters, damaging several multistorey apartment blocks and causing multiple fires.
Zelenskyy also said Russia had launched a drone attack at a thermal power plant in the southern city of Kherson, accusing Moscow of violating a US-brokered moratorium on attacks on energy infrastructure.
Later on Friday, Russian drones staged another “massive” attack on Kryvyi Rih, local officials said, adding that the strikes caused fire at four different areas in the city.
The United States said last week that it had agreed with Russia and Ukraine that they would cease strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, the first such step since Trump took office in January.
Both sides have since accused each other of flouting the agreement.
Kyiv said it had earlier agreed to a US proposal for a full, unconditional 30-day ceasefire, but Russia rejected such a step in separate talks with US officials.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/4/ukraine-says-children-among-14-killed-in-russian-attack-on-kryvyi-rih
