May 8, 2024
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The final death toll from a weekend Russian missile strike on an apartment building in southeastern Ukraine reached 44, officials said Tuesday, as the body of another child was pulled from the wreckage. The strike in the city of Dnipro was the war's deadliest attack since the spring on civilians at one location.
Those killed in the Saturday afternoon strike included five children, and 79 people were injured, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office. The final toll included two dozen people initially listed as missing at the multistory building, which housed about 1,700, he said.
Emergency crews cleared some 9.9 tons of rubble during a non-stop search and rescue operation, the Dnipro City Council said. Some 400 people lost their homes, with 72 apartments completely ruined and another 236 damaged beyond repair, it added.
The latest deadly Russian strike on a civilian target in the almost 11-month war triggered outrage. It also prompted the surprise resignation on Tuesday of a Ukrainian presidential adviser who said the Russian missile exploded and fell after the Ukrainian air defense system shot it down, a version that would take some of the blame off the Kremlin's forces.
Oleksii Arestovich's comments in a Saturday night interview caused an outcry. He said as he quit that his remarks were “a fundamental mistake.” Ukraine’s air force had stressed that the country's military did not possess a system capable of downing Russia's Kh-22 missiles, which it said was the type that hit the apartment building.
“Since the beginning of Russia’s military aggression, more than 210 missiles of this type have been launched on the territory of Ukraine. Not one was shot down by means of anti-aircraft defense,” the air force said Saturday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to bring those responsible for the strike to justice, saying it's “a fundamental task” for Ukraine and its Western allies.
“This strike at Dnipro, as well as other similar strikes, falls, in particular, under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court,” he said in a video address late Monday.
“And we will use all available opportunities — both national and international — to ensure that all Russian murderers, everyone who gives and executes orders on missile terror against our people, face legal sentences. And to ensure that they serve their punishment,” he said.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said Tuesday that the weekend barrage of long-range missiles, the first of its kind in two weeks, targeted Ukraine’s power grid.
The ministry noted that the Kh-22 “is notoriously inaccurate when used against ground targets as its radar guidance system is poor at differentiating targets in urban areas,” suggesting that might have been a factor in the deaths in the Dnipro.
Similar missiles were used in other incidents that caused high civilian casualties, it said, including a strike on a shopping mall in Ukraine’s central city of Kremenchuk in June that officials said killed more than 20 people.
Such incidents have helped stiffen international support for Ukraine as it battles to fend off the Kremlin’s invasion. The winter has brought a slowdown in fighting, but military analysts say a new push by both sides is likely once the weather improves.
