MOSCOW: At least 20 people were killed in Russian strikes across Ukraine on Wednesday, including 14 when a missile slammed into an apartment block in the north of the country as they slept.
Windows shattered in the powerful blast in Pryluky, in the Chernigiv region, reducing one half of the building into a smoking pile of charred concrete and twisted metal. “We were at home, sleeping,” said Olena Sayun, a 40-year-old massage therapist. “Our windows blew out.
Thank God, we covered the child with our bodies. My husband got a few cuts on his back and I did too…
“The child just had a nervous breakdown, got very scared. We immediately ran to the bathroom and then, while everything in the apartment was being blown apart, we stayed in there.”
Emergency services who picked through the debris hunting for survivors said four children were among the 14 killed. They said 50 people had been wounded, including seven children.
One child was among 15 rescued, they added.
“All our kids are about the same age — 10, 8, 14, 11,” Sayun told AFP. “They all played in our courtyard, on the playground, every single day. We knew them all very well.”
The strike, which locals said happened at about 6:30 am (0330 GMT), came after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday warned of a “massive” Russian attack, particularly targeting energy infrastructure.
“The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively,” he said on Wednesday, calling it “one of the most vile strikes” in the nearly five-year conflict.
Two people were killed when missiles slammed into high-rise buildings in Dnipro and Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, while two others lost their lives in Oleksandriya, he added.
In the capital, Kyiv, two people died in a fire caused by a strike in the densely populated Darnytskyi neighbourhood, the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said. –Agencies
