Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and emergency services announced that Russia attacked the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia with five slide bombs, killing at least 15 people, including three children.
Slide bombs hit residential buildings in the city located in the southeast of the country. The attack, which occurred on Saturday morning, also injured at least 16 other people, while a number of people are still missing and are believed to be trapped under the rubble.
Zelensky stated that 13 other regions were also subjected to attacks during the night, adding: “We will have a response to these Russian strikes.”
The Russian attacks came just a few hours after US President Donald Trump announced an agreement to import Russian diesel into the United States.
Pictures and videos taken from the site of one of the strikes show a residential building that was almost completely destroyed.
“The ground floor was hit, and the floors above it collapsed,” Regina Kharchenko, acting mayor of the city, said in a statement to Ukrainian television from the site of the accident.
She said more than 80 workers participated in the ongoing search and rescue operations, which are expected to continue throughout the day.
Rescue workers stop frequently to listen for any sounds made by potential survivors under the rubble.
Kharchenko said that Russia had struck "to the core of our hearts" and that "our youngest children" were among the victims, adding that their deaths represented "a terrible tragedy for their families and for the entire city."
Zelensky had strongly criticized Trump's diesel agreement with Russia, describing it as a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and as "an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged."
Commenting on the strikes launched overnight, Zelensky said: “Russia interprets any easing of pressure as a sign that it can, ostensibly, continue the war.”
He wrote on the “X” platform: “Russia must realize that the war must stop, and for this to happen, it must feel the extent of its losses.”
Russia and Ukraine have intensified their attacks on infrastructure in recent months, as the war between the two countries continues.
Zaporizhya is a major regional center with a population of more than 700,000 people, located less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the front line, and is constantly subjected to attacks by Russian drones and missiles.
The latest strikes on the city come amid a sharp escalation in the pace of Russian attacks, which cause an increasing number of civilian casualties.
On Thursday, at least 33 people were killed in another Russian slide bomb attack targeting two civilian buses in Kramatorsk, located in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
A day earlier, 22 people, including five children, were killed when a Russian missile hit a residential building in the town of Priluki, east of Kiev.
According to the United Nations, the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine rose by 55 percent during the first eight months of this year.
