KYIV: Russian air strikes in several Ukrainian regions on Saturday (Sep 12) killed nine people, injured dozens and damaged residential buildings and infrastructure across the country, officials said.
The civilian death toll has risen sharply in Ukraine over the past two months as Russia steps up attacks on power plants and other infrastructure. Ukraine has hit energy facilities and warehouses in distant parts of Russia and both sides have targeted each others’ shipping.
The city council in Kramatorsk, one of Ukraine’s frontline “fortress cities” that Russia wants to capture, said Russian forces attacked private cars, killing three people in three incidents over a 90-minute period. Four people were injured.
“These are not military targets,” the council said. “They are ordinary civilian cars. People were going about their business.”
The governor of Ukraine’s Zhytomyr Region, west of Kyiv, Vitaliy Bunechko, said a Russian strike on a grocery store killed two people in the town of Zvyahel. Two petrol stations also came under attack as well as an unidentified “enterprise with foreign investment”, he said.
Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reported attacks on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia and in his home town of Kryvyi Rih.
The governor of Zaporizhzhia Region, Ivan Fedorov, said two people were killed and 11 injured in assaults on Zaporizhzhia and other localities.
Oleksandr Vilkul, head of Kryvyi Rih’s military administration, said two people had been killed in overnight attacks on the city by drones and missiles.
