17th January, 2023
The death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment block in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro over the weekend continued to rise on Monday, even as dozens remained missing in the debris.
Rescuers continued to search the rubble of the nine-storey residential building which partially collapsed after being struck by a missile on Saturday.
Authorities said at least 40 people are dead, including three children, after more bodies were recovered during the night.
At least 75 people were wounded in the strike, including 14 children, according to Valentyn Reznichenko, the military governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
He said more than 100 people survived the strike.
In sub-zero temperatures, there was little hope of finding any more survivors, although Reznichenko insisted – like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – that “the search for people under the rubble continues.”
A representation of the devastating toll the conflict has had on Ukrainian residents is the apartment building’s devastation.
The Russian airstrike on Dnipro was the worst of several that struck Ukrainian civilian electricity infrastructure over the weekend.
The European Union (EU) condemned Moscow for the missile strike, saying that Russia’s “continued heinous strikes” on Ukraine would only serve to strengthen the EU’s resolve to support Kyiv.
“Russia continues to show its inhuman face and applies its brutal missile terror indiscriminately,” an EU foreign affairs spokesperson said in Brussels on Monday.
On Monday Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief spokesperson, rejected blame for the deadly attack on Dnipro, instead seeking to blame Ukrainian air defences for the missile strike.
Peskov claimed that Russia has only attacked military targets in Ukraine, even though Russian shells have repeatedly killed many civilians throughout the invasion.
dpa/NAN