KYIV: At least 13 people were wounded on Sunday in a series of Russian strikes on Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, emergency services announced.
The regional capital was hit by several “massive aerial strikes” at dawn, Ukrainian emergency services said in a statement.
Meanwhile, in the embattled eastern region of Donetsk, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said that three people were killed and another injured in new Russian strikes on Pokrovsk, the logistical hub that has been under attack by Moscow for weeks.
And Russia’s defence ministry claimed that it had taken the village of Makiivka in the neighbouring Lugansk region, a settlement that Ukrainian authorities said had been evacuated in late July.
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In Zaporizhzhia, which Russia has annexed but does not fully control, 42 members of the emergency services were helping those potentially trapped under the rubble, emergency officials said.
“A building and six houses in different city neighbourhoods suffered a lot of destruction,” they said in a statement.
“The number of victims has risen to 13 people. A 17-year-old man is amongst the wounded.”
A woman dragged from the rubble was taken to hospital.
Regional governor Ivan Fedorov had earlier said that six people were wounded.
He said that Zaporizhzhia was hit by 10 Russian strikes that destroyed “one multi-storey building and some houses”.
The public railway company said that one of the train stations in Zaporizhzhia had been damaged.
Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, hit out in a social media post at an attempt to “terrorise” the civilian population.
Yermak also reiterated his call on Western allies to supply more weapons to intercept Russian missiles and apply more economic sanctions against Moscow.
Russia annexed the Zaporizhzhia region in 2022, but the main city of the same name remains under Kyiv’s control.