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2-year-old girl killed, 22 hurt in Russian airstrike on Dnipro residential area
Regional governor says attack destroyed pair of apartment buildings, 10 other homes, gas pipeline; air defenses in Kyiv repel drones and missiles overnight
KYIV, Ukraine — An airstrike hit a residential district in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, killing a two-year-old girl and injuring 22 others, officials said Sunday.
The attack, which President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed on Russia, partially destroyed a pair of two-story buildings as well as 10 private homes, a shop, and a gas pipeline, according to the region’s governor.
Russian airstrikes over Ukraine have ratcheted up in recent weeks, as have incursions in the opposite direction.
Kyiv has for months said it is preparing a major counteroffensive against Moscow’s occupation forces, hoping to reclaim territory lost since Russia invaded in February 2022.
After Saturday’s strike, a girl’s body was pulled from the wreckage.
“At night, a girl’s body was retrieved from under the rubble of a house in the Pidhorodnenska community,” Serhiy Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, posted on Telegram early Sunday.
Dnipro.
The Russians attacked the city. They hit between two two-story residential buildings. Unfortunately, there are people under the rubble. All services are working.
Once again, Russia proves it is a terrorist state. The Russians will bear responsibility for everything… pic.twitter.com/cAVF5NpcV2— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) June 3, 2023
“She just turned two.”
He added that “22 people were injured, 5 of them were children,” having said earlier that three boys were in serious condition at the hospital.
Zelensky blamed Russia for the strike, saying more people were trapped beneath the wreckage.
“The Russians attacked the city,” Zelensky posted on Facebook on Saturday.
“Once again, Russia proves it is a terrorist state. The Russians will bear responsibility for everything committed against our state and people.”
Video posted by Zelensky showed rescue workers searching the destroyed building, to the sound of industrial drills.
At least 20 victims after the Russian missile strike, three children in serious condition – head of Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration
Among the victims of the Russian strike on the suburbs of Dnipro are five children, said the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional… pic.twitter.com/veJOzlDJvg
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) June 3, 2023
In Kyiv, the head of the local military administration said the capital’s air defenses repelled several missiles and drones.
“According to preliminary information, not a single aerial target reached the capital,” Serhiy Popko wrote on Telegram on Sunday.
“The air defense forces destroyed everything heading towards the city at long distance. For the second night in a row, the residents of Kyiv did not hear the sounds of explosions overhead.”
On Saturday, Ukrainian shelling killed two people in Russia’s Belgorod, a border region that has been hit by repeated attacks this week, the local governor said.
Belgorod villages have been targeted by unprecedented shelling, and the latest deaths bring the overall toll there to seven this week.
