Russia maintains punishing pace of deadly attacks on Ukrainian cities

A Russian missile attack on a small town in southeastern Ukraine and the ensuing inferno cost at least seven civilians, including three childrenthe country’s authorities said on Sunday, as they tallied the deadly toll from two days of intense Russian attacks.

Yuri Borzenko, chief physician at the Zaporizhia Regional Children’s Hospital, said in a telephone interview that in addition to the dead, dozens of others, including a pregnant woman and five 14-year-old girls, were being treated for injuries after the attack on the southeastern city of Vilniansk on Saturday.

The girls were walking together in the afternoon sun, Dr. Borzenko said, when explosions from the projectiles ripped through the center of the city, engulfing shops, cars and houses. Shrapnel was embedded in the skull of one of the girls, who he said was in a coma, “still between life and death.”

“Her parents are in really bad shape, I just saw them,” he added.

As the attacks have descended, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has renewed his plea to relax restrictions on the use of US long-range missiles, known as ATACMS, to allow Ukraine to target fighter jets at Russian air bases before they take to the skies for bombing. .

“Long-range strikes and modern air defenses are the basis for stopping daily Russian terror,” he said in his speech on Sunday an explanation for videos would show the aftermath of some of the week’s worst attacks.

The attack in Vilniansk was one of a series of attacks across Ukraine that have killed at least 24 civilians since Friday evening, local officials and aid workers said. Dozens of others were also injured.

Also on Saturday, nine people living on front lines in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine were killed by Russian shelling. local officials said. At least six others were killed in shelling on Sunday morning, officials added.

Three powerful guided bombs dropped by Russian warplanes exploded in the city of Derhachi, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, on Saturday, hitting five multi-storey apartment buildings. Ukrainian officials saidNo deaths were reported, but two elderly men were reportedly hospitalized with shrapnel wounds.

Mr Zelensky said on Sunday that about 800 of those powerful bombs, packed with hundreds of kilos of explosives, had been dropped by Russian warplanes over the past week.

Although the Ukrainian air force said it shot down 10 Russian drones on Saturday, one such strike killed a 67-year-old man in the southern Kherson region. local officials said.

A Russian missile also hit an apartment building in Dnipro, central Ukraine, on Friday evening. After sifting through the rubble for days, rescuers said On Sunday it was confirmed that one person had died and two were still missing.

All of the attacks — reported by local officials reached by phone, national police, emergency services and local hospitals, and their aftermaths captured on video by Ukrainian news organizations — occurred within 48 hours and provided only a partial snapshot of the daily violence.

While Russian forces have stepped up attacks on the front lines, they have also continued to launch attacks across Ukraine, exploiting gaps in air defenses, with the aim of sapping the country’s resources, destroying its economy and public to break spirit.

The total number of civilian casualties in June is not yet known, but May was the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine in a year. This was reported by the UN Human Rights Observation Mission.

The mission’s researchers reported that at least 174 civilians were killed and 690 others injured in conflict-related violence that month.

The rising death toll coincides with the ongoing bombardment of Ukraine’s power grid, making life challenging for millions of residents who already endure hours of planned power outages every day.

Russia has regularly attacked thermal power plants in Ukraine, resulting in the loss of 90 percent of their generation capacity, according to Ildar Salieiev, the head of DTEK, one of the country’s largest private electricity companies, said in a statement.

“Due to the extent of the destruction, recovery will take years rather than months,” Mr. Salieiev wrote.

Ukrainian officials have sought to prepare the public for what is likely to be another difficult winter, calling on international allies to speed up the delivery of air defense systems that could limit further damage and save lives.

Even in the best-case scenario – without further major damage to the grid – energy officials have said Ukrainians should prepare for a winter with widespread power outages.

Serhii Kovalenko, head of Yasno, another private energy company in Ukraine, said it looked like there would be a significant daily shortage in the energy system as winter approached.

“As critical infrastructure is repaired and then remaining supplies are distributed, consumers could face a 50 percent shortage,” he said in a statement. “Therefore, the baseline forecast is 12 hours without electricity.”

Anna Lukinova contributed to the reporting from Kiev. Natalia Novosolova contributed to research.