Russia launched a fresh wave of missile attacks in Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least 12 people in an attack on an apartment block in the eastern city of Dnipro.
Several other cities were also affected, including Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa.
Much of Ukraine is now under an emergency blackout after missiles hit power infrastructure in several cities.
Earlier, Britain said it would send Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine to help defend the country.
British Prime Minister Rishi Singh said the Challengers, the British Army’s main battle tank, would help Kyiv’s forces “push back Russian troops”.
Russia responded by saying that supplying Ukraine with more weapons would intensify Russian operations and cause more civilian casualties.
Later on Saturday – a day when Ukrainians celebrate the Old (or Orthodox) New Year – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian attacks on civilian targets could only be stopped if Ukraine’s Western partners Provide necessary weapons.
“What does it require? Weapons that are in the depots of our partners and that our soldiers are waiting for,” he added in his nightly video address. that their forces shot down more than 20 out of 30 Russian missiles. Shot at Ukraine.
A devastating strike in Dnipro slammed into the entrance of a nine-story building, reducing several floors to smoking rubble, and injuring 73 people, including 14 children, in what Ukrainian officials said was the worst attack in months. Is.
A large crowd gathered at the strike site to watch rescue efforts, while others joined rescue workers in the search for survivors. There were urgent calls, human chains of volunteers clearing the debris and torch beams piercing thick clouds of dust and smoke.
In his address, Mr Zelenskiy said the debris removal operation in Dnipro would continue through the night: “We are fighting for every person, every life.” Officials say that 37 people, including six children, have been rescued from the building so far.
There is still no information on why the apartment block was the target of such destruction, as it is some distance from the nearest power facility.
On a day when Russia appeared intent, once again, on targeting Ukraine’s energy grid, it could have been one of the less accurate missiles in Russia’s arsenal, or one shot down by Ukraine’s air defenses. Could have been a missile – although on the face of it, it seems so. A less likely explanation.
It has been two weeks since the last wave of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid. Mr Zelenskiy said of the energy infrastructure facilities affected on Saturday that the most difficult situation was in Kharkiv and Kyiv regions.
Ukraine’s state energy company Ukrainergo said earlier that around-the-clock usage limits were set for all regions until midnight local time.
Officials, both in the West and in Ukraine, had begun to wonder if Russia’s “energy war” was about to end, due to a possible lack of adequate missiles and the obvious fact that the strategy had yet to destroy Ukraine’s spirit. to break
Saturday’s attacks suggest that Moscow still thinks this is a tactic worth pursuing.
