Airstrikes hit Dnieper in central Ukraine on Saturday evening, killing a two-year-old girl and injuring 22 people, and on Sunday an airfield in the center of the country, according to Ukrainian authorities. President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Russians of “attacking the city” and claimed that other victims remained trapped in the rubble of two apartment buildings. Russian airstrikes over Ukraine have intensified in recent weeks, as have incursions in the opposite direction.
For months, Kiev has claimed to be preparing for a major offensive against the occupying forces of Moscow, with the aim of reconquering territories lost since the Russian invasion of February 2022. Saturday’s strike hit two buildings in a neighborhood of dwellings in the Dnieper, said the president. “The Russians attacked the city,” Volodymyr Zelensky posted on Facebook on Saturday. “They hit between two two-story apartment buildings. Unfortunately, there are people under the rubble. »
A video posted by Volodymyr Zelensky shows rescuers searching the destroyed building, to the sound of industrial drills. “Five children were injured by the enemy in the community of Pidhorodnenska,” said Serhiy Lysak, governor of the Dnieper region. “Doctors consider the condition of three boys to be serious. They are in the operating room. »
Across the border, Ukrainian shellfire killed two people on Saturday in Belgorod, Russia, the local governor said. Border villages in this region have been hit by unprecedented artillery fire in recent days, and the latest deaths bring the overall toll to seven this week.
