THE TELEGRAPH
Russia fired a barrage of missiles at Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town on Monday, the day after the Ukrainian president warned Moscow of “inevitable” attacks on its citizens.
At least five people, including a young girl, were killed in Kryvyi Rih, which has largely been spared Russian bombardment, in an apparent tit-for-tat strike.
On Sunday, Mr Zelensky said attacks on Russian soil were an “inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process” in the war. He was speaking after drones smashed into skyscrapers in a Moscow business district earlier that day.
Oleksander Vilkuk, the mayor of Kryvyi Rih, said two Russian ballistic missiles hit the city, crashing into a vocational school and a high-rise residential building.
Five bodies were found at the high-rise. Those of a 10-year-old girl and her mother were pulled from the rubble, according to Serhiy Lysak, the head of the Dnipro region.
About 150 residents managed to escape the building, with more than 30 later evacuated by rescue teams.
Yuri, an elderly resident who survived in his flat on the fourth floor, just below the impact site, said he was lucky to be alive.
“First things started to shake, then I felt the explosion and everything started falling on me,” he told Pirskhy Misky, the local TV channel. “I crawled out from underneath the debris and heard people outside shouting if anyone was alive. I managed to grab my phone, nothing else.”
Local media reported there was no air raid siren before the missiles hit , while CNN interviewed several residents, including the director of the targeted vocational school, who said she did not hear an alarm.
Lidia Girik, who lived in the damaged block of flats, told Suspilne public television on Monday that she heard an explosion before the missile hit:
“There was a bright flash of light and I just shut my eyes. The door behind me flung open and everything in the flat came crashing down,” she said.
Mr Zelensky offered his condolences to victims of the deadly attacks in Kryvyi Rih as well as attacks in Kherson, calling them acts of terrorism.
“The enemy has been hitting our cities, our city centres in recent days,” he said. “This terror will not scare us, nor will it break us.”
It came as Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s children’s ombudsman, said 700,000 children had been “relocated” from Ukraine into Russia. She said a total of 4.8 million Ukrainians had crossed the border and that children had been “protected from hostilities”.
The ICC has accused Vladimir Putin and Ms Lvova-Belova of war crimes over the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.
