ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — Russian glide bombs struck residential buildings in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia early Saturday, killing at least 17 people, including three children, regional officials said, as rescuers searched the rubble of a collapsed apartment block, the Kyiv Post and BBC News reported.
Russian aircraft dropped five guided bombs on the city at about 4:48 a.m. local time, damaging at least 26 residential buildings in the Shevchenkivskyi and Voznesenivskyi districts and scoring a direct hit on a five-story apartment building, the Kyiv Post said. Ivan Fedorov, co-chair of the regional defense council, put the toll at 17 dead and 16 wounded; Ukraine’s State Emergency Service had earlier reported 15 killed. “The ground floor was hit, and the floors above just collapsed,” acting Mayor Regina Kharchenko told Ukrainian television, according to the BBC, which said more than 80 rescue workers were involved.
President Volodymyr Zelensky tied the strike to Washington’s decision to let Russia export diesel, writing on X that “Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia.” He said 13 Ukrainian regions had been hit overnight and that Ukraine’s “responses to Russian strikes will follow.”
Zaporizhzhia, a city of more than 700,000 people, lies less than 10 miles from the front line. Saturday’s attack was the second straight morning of glide-bomb strikes there; on Friday, six bombs killed one man and injured 23, the Kyiv Post said. On Thursday, at least 33 people were killed in a Russian glide bomb attack on two buses in Kramatorsk, and the U.N. says civilian casualties in Ukraine rose 55 percent in the first eight months of this year, the BBC reported. Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, claimed its forces had captured two settlements in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, according to The Guardian.
Sources: Kyiv Post, BBC News, The Guardian
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