More Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities have been reported, the day after at least nine people were killed in the latest wave of attacks using missiles and so-called “kamikaze drones”.
A Russian missile struck an apartment building in the southern Ukrainian port of Mykolaiv early on Tuesday, a Reuters witness said.
The missile, which caused one of three explosions heard, completely destroyed one wing of the building in the city centre, leaving a massive crater.
A fire crew pulled the dead body of a man from the rubble, the witness said, and President Zelenskyy confirmed that one person had died in the attack.
Power facilities have again been targeted on Tuesday in several cities around the country, including the capital, causing power cuts and disruption to water supplies.
Russian forces attacked energy infrastructure in northern Kyiv, causing several explosions and sending smoke rising over the city, officials and witnesses said.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office, said there had been three Russian strikes on an unspecified energy facility. The city mayor said the attack was on “critical infrastructure” and emergency workers were heading there.
The government has also confirmed fresh strikes on power facilities in Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Zhytomyr around 100 kilometres to the west of the capital.
In Dnipro, where Tymoshenko said there was “serious damage”, the local governor said several districts were without power and water. Themayor of Zhytomyr also reported power and water outages.
“Ukraine is under fire by the occupiers. They continue to do what they do best — terrorise and kill civilians,” Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “The terrorist state will not change anything for itself with such actions. It will only confirm its destructive and murderous essence, for which it will certainly be held to account.”
Monday brought Russian strikes on the capital Kyiv and other cities in which at least nine people were killed, the second wave of air strikes in a week. Ukraine said the attacks were carried out by Iran-made “suicide drones”, which fly to their target and detonate.
The United States, Britain and France agreed that Iran supplying drones to Russia would violate a UN Security Council resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six powers.
Several EU foreign ministers on Monday called for sanctions against Iran over the transfer of drones to Russia. The White House accused Iran of lying over its denials that Iranian drones are being used by Moscow in Ukraine.
The latest intelligence assessment by Britain’s defence ministry says Russia’s heightened campaign of long-range strikes has been conducted by cruise missiles, air defence missiles, and “Iranian-provided Shahed-136” drones.
“As Russia has suffered battlefield setbacks since August, it has highly likely gained a greater willingness to strike civilian infrastructure in addition to Ukrainian military targets,” it said on Twitter.
In a separate development, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company accused Russia on Tuesday of “kidnapping” two more senior staff at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine.
The power station’s head of information technology, Oleh Kostyukov, and Oleh Oshek, an assistant to the plant’s director, were seized on Monday, Energoatom wrote on the Telegram app on Tuesday.
“At present, nothing is known of their whereabouts or condition,” its statement said.
On Monday Ukraine and Russia carried out one of the biggest prisoner swaps so far, exchanging a total of 218 detainees, including 108 Ukrainian women — including 12 civilians according to Ukraine’s chief of staff.
Zelenskyy said later that his troops should take more prisoners, saying this would make it easier to secure the release of soldiers being held by Russia.
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