An apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Uman has been hit after a series of early morning airstrikes across the country on Friday, the US NPR News reported.
The commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valery Zaluzhny, says Ukraine managed to shoot down 21 incoming cruise missiles out of a total of 23, with the remaining two hitting Uman and Dnipro.
The attack on Uman is the deadliest strike on a Ukrainian apartment building since 40 people were killed in Dnipro in January.
Ukraine’s emergency service says at least 16 people are dead in Uman. The regional military administrator for Uman, Ihor Taburets, told reporters that three children were among those killed, adding that several more are likely to be found dead in the rubble.
Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said that additional rescue and forensics teams have been dispatched from Kyiv, added that it will take more than a day to search the ruins for more victims. So far, Ukraine’s emergency service has managed to rescue 17 people, NPR report further said.
Meanwhile, the regional military administrator in Dnipro says at least two people are dead from the second missile strike on a low-rise housing complex.
Ukraine’s General Prosecutor’s office says it is investigating the cases as potential war crimes, saying the missiles intentionally targeted civilian areas.
Taburets said there weren’t any military targets adjacent to the apartment complex in Uman. Russian officials have yet to comment.
“They shoot in order to terrify us,” Taburets said. “For all of their claims of advanced equipment, Russians nonetheless hit civilian buildings all the time.”
The strikes come one day after a similar attack on a historic apartment building in the southern city of Mykolaiv, which left one person dead. All three attacks used high-precision cruise missiles, according to Ukrainian officials.
MNA/PR