At least 17 killed in Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine

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t least 17 people have been killed and 40 others injured after a rocket struck Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia area on Saturday.  Acting Mayor of Zaporizhzhia Anatoly Kurtev said that in the attack, five houses were destroyed and apartment buildings were damaged. Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, while addressing the nation on Saturday, said that a fierce battle is taking place around the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region. 

“We are holding positions in Donbas, in particular in the Bakhmut direction, where now it is very, very hard, very tough fighting,” Zelensky said. “Today, I would like to once again mention our soldiers from the Kholodny Yar 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade for their courage and sustained power in this direction.” 

Zaporizhzhia is a major city in southern Ukraine, not far from the front line, and the site of a nuclear power plant that the international community is watching warily. Part of the wider region is occupied by Russian forces. Notably, the war between Moscow and Kyiv intensified after Russia announced the annexation of four regions of Ukraine—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. 

The war between Russia and Ukraine appears to be entering a new phase after Kyiv dealt a big blow to Moscow’s grip after it recaptured 2,400 square kilometres of territory in the Kherson region in the south of the country “since the beginning of the full-scale war,” a senior Ukrainian official said Friday.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president’s office, said six settlements had been liberated in the Kherson district as well as 61 in the Beryslav district. Tymoshenko said the evacuation of civilians continued amid massive destruction to critical infrastructure in towns like Arkhanhelske, Vysokopillia, and Osokorivka, all of which saw weeks of heavy fighting and indirect fire.