The pictures published by the state emergency service (DSNS) in the online service Telegram showed badly damaged buildings in Rzhyzhzhiv, which is around 80 kilometers south of the capital Kiev. The attack “partially destroyed” two floors of two high school dormitories and a building used for learning, the emergency services said. A fire broke out on the school grounds, but was quickly extinguished.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the drones used in Rzhyshchiv were Iranian Shahed 136/131 weapons. A total of 21 drones were fired from the Russian region of Bryansk north of Ukraine, the Air Force said on Telegram. 16 of these missiles were shot down by the Ukrainian air defenses.
Selenskyj condemned the “criminal attack” with “Iranian murder drones”. In the short message service Twitter he denounced “a night of Russian terror against Ukraine”. He later announced that Ukraine would respond to “any attack” by Russia.
In Zaporizhia, one person died after a Russian airstrike on two nine-story residential buildings, Mayor Anatoly Kurtiev said in the Telegram online service.
Resident Artem Majboroda, 16, told AFP he was getting dressed in his sixth-floor apartment when the attack rocked the house. “Everything started to crumble and fall, and then I kind of had to go down the stairs. I kicked in a door and went down through the rubble. There is no apartment left, no balcony, nothing. The fire has our apartment achieved,” he said.
The visit of the Ukrainian head of state on Wednesday in the area of the city of Bakhmut took place without public advance notice for security reasons. According to his office, Selenskyj visited the soldiers at the front there. “It’s an honor for me to be here today to honor our heroes, to shake hands with them and thank them for protecting our country’s sovereignty,” the Ukrainian president said in a message shared online.
In another post, Zelenskyy said he had also visited soldiers injured in the fighting, who are now being treated. A video showed him walking with doctors through a hospital where the injured were lying. Later he also visited Kharkiv in the northeast.
Meanwhile, authorities on Russia’s annexed Crimea said the country’s navy repelled a drone attack on the port of Sevastopol. The drones “tried to enter our bay, our sailors shot at them with small arms,” Kremlin-backed governor Mikhail Rasvozhayev told Telegram. The air defense also “worked”. A total of “three objects” were destroyed.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned on Wednesday that the Ukraine crisis could escalate if Britain were to supply Kiev with armor-piercing ammunition containing depleted uranium. British Defense Minister Annabel Goldie said on Monday that London would also supply Kiev with armor-piercing ammunition containing enriched uranium.
