A Russian missile attack on an apartment building in Pryluky, a city east of Kyiv in northern Ukraine, resulted in 19 deaths including five children in the early hours of Wednesday. Three of the child victims were one-year-olds. Rescue teams spent hours searching through the rubble of the five-storey residential block, ultimately recovering five child victims from the site. Over 50 residents were wounded in the strike, and more than 30 apartments were destroyed or significantly damaged. Additional residential buildings and a youth center in the area also sustained damage.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky characterized the strike as one of Russia’s most severe attacks and suggested it was timed deliberately to coincide with Vladimir Putin’s birthday. The regional administrator reported that five cruise missiles targeted the town, with one directly hitting the apartment complex. Zelensky stated that approximately 70 missiles were launched in total across multiple Ukrainian locations. Russian officials acknowledged conducting strikes but claimed their focus was military industrial targets in Kyiv and other areas, making no specific reference to the Pryluky incident.
The overall death toll for the day reached 25 across Ukraine, with additional fatalities reported in Kyiv, Kremenchuk, and Oleksandriya. Kremenchuk sustained substantial damage with more than 430 apartments and homes affected. Ukraine’s air defense systems reported intercepting multiple incoming weapons, though a significant number of cruise and ballistic missiles penetrated defenses. Zelensky renewed calls for allied nations to supply additional air defense systems to strengthen Ukraine’s capability to counter such attacks.
In response, Ukrainian forces conducted retaliatory strikes against targets in Russian territory, including facilities in the Perm, Samara, and Astrakhan regions. Operations in the Black Sea also continued, with Zelensky referencing additional responses without elaborating. Separately, a civilian oil tanker and cargo vessels operating in the Black Sea sustained damage in drone attacks within Bulgarian waters, though responsibility for those incidents remained unconfirmed.
Article Attribution | Read More at Article Source
Article summary produced by Claude AI