Russia hit the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia with seven rockets, flattening an apartment building on early on Thursday morning. The city’s authorities told Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne at least two have died and at least another five are trapped under the rubble. Rescue workers at the scene said they saved one three-year-old girl.
Zaporizhzhia’s branch of Suspline reported more explosions in the city at mid-morning Kyiv time.
Oleksandr Starukh, Ukraine’s governor of Zaporizhzhia, said on Telegram: “Attention. Another enemy missile attack. Stay in shelters”.
Russia launched two rockets at the central Ukrainian city of Khmelnytsky, but both reportedly missed their targets.
Elsewhere, Russia used what the Ukrainian authorities say are Iranian-supplied kamikaze drones to target the cities of Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Odesa. Ukraine’s military say they managed to shoot down 18 additional drones before they reached Odesa and Mykolaiv.
As the Guardian’s Peter Beaumont reported, the Iranian drones are able to remain airborne for several hours and circle over potential targets, the drones are designed to be flown into enemy troops, armour or buildings, exploding on impact – explaining their description as kamikaze drones.
The city of Zaporizhzhia is the administrative centre of the Zaporizhzhia region which Russia claims to have annexed.
Russia-Ukraine war live: more explosions after missile strikes hit residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia
Russia hits southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia with seven rockets, flattening apartment building
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Kirill Stremousov, one of the Russian-imposed leaders in the occupied region of Kherson which the Russian Federation has claimed to annex, has been very vocal on Telegram in the last couple of days, attempting to counter any narrative that Ukrainian forces are making any progress in the south. This morning he has, without presenting evidence, again asserted that the defences in Kherson are holding. He said:
The Russian Federation has signed into law an annexation of the Kherson region, despite not fully controlling it.The situation in the Kherson region is unchanged. The Kherson region is holding back the onslaught of the Ukronazis who are trying to break into Kherson. We repeat once again that despite the panic that is dispersed in the media, in the Kherson region, the ministry of defence and the Russian Guard stand to the death. The advances of the Ukronazis, fascists, Germans, Americans and other mercenaries have been stopped.
More evidence of tortured and extrajudicial killings has been discovered in Kharkiv region.
Two civilians corpses aged 30-35 were found in a grave in the village of Novoplatonivka, Kharkiv region, according to Ukrainian authorities. The left hand of one man was handcuffed to the right hand of the second man. Investigators said one of the skulls was fractured and the other had suffered a gun shot wound to the head.
Kharkiv prosecutors and police said 250-350 Russian special forces were stationed near the grave. They said their initial suspicion is that the men were killed by Russian special forces.
In Pisky-Radkivskyi, another village in Kharkiv region, Ukraine authorities said they found another torture chamber.
Serhii Bolvinov, chief investigator for Kharkiv region said: “Neighbours constantly heard screams from here. Investigators found a terrible torture chamber in the village.
“Police have been made aware of the torture of burying people alive and the use of a gas mask with a smouldering rag.”
The UN nuclear agency chief will shortly arrive in Kyiv to discuss creating a security zone around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, after Putin ordered his government to take it over.
“On our way to Kyiv for important meetings,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi wrote on Twitter, saying the need for a protection zone around the site was “more urgent than ever”.
Putin earlier signed a decree ordering the Russian government to take control of Europe’s largest atomic plant and make it “federal property”.