Official: Strikes on Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia kill 17
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Loading... - Ilaria Danese
- 12 Oct 2022
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A Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia overnight struck apartment buildings and killed at least 17 people, a top official in the Ukrainian city said Sunday.
City council Secretary Anatoliy Kurtev said the city was struck by rockets overnight, and that at least five private houses were destroyed and around 40 were damaged. The Ukrainian military also confirmed the attack, saying that there were dozens of casualties.
The strike came after an explosion Saturday caused the partial collapse of a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia, damaging an important supply artery for the Kremlin’s faltering war effort in southern Ukraine and hitting a towering symbol of Russian power in the region.
Zaporizhzhia has been repeatedly hit in recent weeks and is in the Ukrainian controlled-part of a region that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed in violation of international law last week.
A part of the region currently in Russian control is home to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest. It has repeatedly been imperiled by fighting, and lost its last remaining external power source as a result of renewed shelling, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Saturday. It is now relying on emergency diesel generators.
No one has claimed responsibility for the Crimea bridge attack, but it was a significant blow to Russia and could lead to an escalation of the conflict. Some Russian lawmakers are calling for Putin to declare a “counterterrorism operation,” rather than the term “special military operation” that has downplayed the scope of fighting to ordinary Russians.
Putin signed a decree late Saturday tightening security for the bridge and for energy infrastructure between Crimea and Russia, and put Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, in charge of the effort. Read More...
