Russian strikes on Zaporizhzhia kill at least 12, Ukrainian officials say

A Russian missile barrage that crumbled apartment buildings and houses in Ukraine's city of Zaporizhzhia killed at least a dozen people, Ukrainian officials said Sunday as Moscow strained to enforce its takeover of illegally annexed territory.

The blasts that collapsed at least one high-rise residential building and blew out the windows of others came from six missiles launched in Russian-occupied areas of the Zaporizhzhia region, the Ukrainian air force said. The region is one of four Russia claimed as its own this month, but the regional capital remains under Ukrainian control.

In the immediate aftermath of the strikes, the city council said 17 were killed but later revised that down to 12. Regional police reported on Sunday afternoon that 13 had been killed and more than 60 wounded, at least 10 of whom were children.

The multiple strikes came after an explosion Saturday caused the partial collapse of a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia. The Kerch Bridge attack damaged an important supply route for the Kremlin's faltering war effort in southern Ukraine, an artery that also is a towering symbol of Russia's power in the region.

The rockets that pounded Zaporizhzhia overnight damaged at least 20 private homes and 50 apartment buildings, city council Secretary Anatoliy Kurtev said. At least 40 people were hospitalized, Kurtev said on Telegram.

WATCH | 3rd deadly attack hits Zaporizhzhia: 

Russian missile strikes pound Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia

2 years ago

Duration 3:03

The city of Zaporizhzhia has been targeted by Russian missile strikes in recent days, the latest hitting homes and apartment complexes. Some believe it's a response to an alleged Ukrainian attack on a strategic and politically important bridge linking Crimea and Russia.

The Ukrainian military confirmed the attack, saying there were dozens of casualties.

Stunned residents watched from behind police tape as emergency crews tried to reach the upper floors of a building that took a direct hit. The attack collapsed several floors, leaving a smoldering chasm at least 12 metres wide where apartments had stood. Several hours later, the top floors caved in as well.

In an adjacent apartment building, the barrage blew windows and doors out of their frames in a radius of hundreds of metres.

Tetyana Lazun'ko, 73, and her husband, Oleksii, took shelter in the hallway of their top floor apartment after hearing sirens, warning of an attack. They were spared the worst of the blast that left them in fear and disbelief.

"There was an explosion. Everything was shaking," Lazun'ko said. "Everything was flying and I was screaming."

Shards of glass, entire window and door frames and other debris covered the exterior floors of the apartment where they'd lived since 1974. Lazun'ko wept inconsolably, wondering why their home in an area with no military infrastructure in sight was targeted.

"Why are they bombing us. Why?" she said.

Oleksii, who sat quietly, leaning on a wooden cane, has suffered three strokes, Lazun'ko said. Breaking his silence, he said slowly, "This is international terrorism. You can't be saved from it."

Repeated strikes

In recent weeks, Russia has repeatedly struck Zaporizhzhia, which is the capital of a region of the same name that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed in violation of international law last week. At least 19 people died in Russian missile strikes on apartment buildings in the city on Thursday.

"Again, Zaporizhzhia. Again, merciless attacks on civilians, targeting residential buildings, in the middle of the night," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a Telegram post.

"Absolute meanness. Absolute evil .. From the one who gave this order, to everyone who carried out this order: they will answer. They must. Before the law and the people," he added.

While Russia targeted Zaporizhzhia before Saturday's explosion on the Crimea bridge, the attack was a significant blow to Russia, which annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. No one has claimed responsibility for damaging the bridge.

Putin signed a decree late Saturday tightening security for the bridge and for energy infrastructure between Crimea and Russia, and put Russia's federal security service, the FSB, in charge of the effort.

On Sunday, Putin blamed Kyiv for attacking the bridge, calling the explosion an "act of terrorism" by Ukraine's special services.

Some Russian lawmakers have called for Putin to declare a "counterterrorism operation," rather than the term "special military operation" that has downplayed the scope of fighting to ordinary Russians.

The 19-kilometre Kerch Bridge, on a strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is a symbol of Moscow's claims on Crimea and an essential link to the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The $3.6-billion US bridge, the longest in Europe, is vital to sustaining Russia's military operations in southern Ukraine. Putin himself presided over the bridge's opening in May 2018.

Traffic over bridge disrupted

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a video address, indirectly acknowledged the bridge attack but did not address its cause.

"Today was not a bad day and mostly sunny on our state's territory," he said. "Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Although it was also warm."

Zelenskyy said Ukraine wants a future "without occupiers. Throughout our territory, in particular in Crimea."

Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian forces advanced or held the line in the east and south, but acknowledged "very, very difficult, very tough fighting" around the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have claimed recent gains.

Fighting imperils nuclear plant

While Russia seized areas north of Crimea early in its invasion of Ukraine and built a land corridor to it along the Sea of Azov, Ukraine is pressing a counteroffensive to reclaim that territory as well as four regions Putin illegally annexed this month.

Ukraine has recaptured over 1,170 square kilometres (450 square miles) of land in its southern Kherson region since launching the start of its counter-assault against Russia in late August, a Ukrainian military spokesperson said.

Russia has ramped up its strikes on the city of Zaporizhzhia since formally absorbing the surrounding region on Sept. 29.

The regional governor of Zaporizhzhia reported that the death toll had risen to 32 after Russia's missile strike on a civilian convoy making its way out of the city on Sept. 30. In a Telegram post, Oleksandr Starukh that one more person died in the hospital on Friday.

Also in the region, the external power supply to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was restored on Sunday, Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom and the UN's nuclear watchdog said.

The plant, which is in cold shutdown, lost its last remaining power line early on Saturday due to shelling, and had to use back-up diesel generators for its own needs, such as cooling the reactor blocks. 

"After almost two days of operating the emergency cooling pumps of the active zones of the reactors with power from diesel generators, the operational staff are restoring the normal regimen of powering the plant's own needs from the energy system of Ukraine," Energoatom said on Telegram.

Rafael Grossi, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has two observers at the plant, confirmed the power supply had been restored.

Russian forces occupied the plant soon after they invaded Ukraine in February, but Ukrainian operators have remained on site.

Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other for shelling at the site of Europe's biggest nuclear plant that has damaged buildings and raised concern about a potential nuclear disaster.