Russian missile hits Ukrainian city one day after deadly attack

A Russian missile has struck Kryvyi Rih, authorities said, just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home city was observing an official day of mourning after an attack on the previous day killed four civilians at a hotel.

The latest attack on the city struck civilian infrastructure, injuring four people, local administration head Oleksandr Vilkul said on social media.

The previous attack on Tuesday, which also wounded five people in Kryvyi Rih in addition to the four dead, was part of a barrage of dozens of missiles and drones across Ukraine that Russia launched for a second consecutive day.

Regional head Serhii Lysak said: “When Kryvyi Rih is in mourning, the enemy attacks again. And it once again aims at civilians.”

Russia stepped up its bombing of Ukraine on Monday, when it fired more than 100 missiles and a similar number of drones in its biggest onslaught in weeks.

The intensified bombing campaign coincided with what could prove to be a decisive period of the war, which Russia launched on February 24 2022.

Russian forces have been driving deeper into Ukraine’s partly occupied eastern Donetsk region, whose total capture is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions.

Russia’s army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defence in the area.

At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion onto Russian soil since the Second World War.

The move is in part an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.

At the hotel in Kryvyi Rih, rescuers on Wednesday found another body under the rubble. The rescue operation was subsequently ended.

Meanwhile, Ukraine claimed its anti-aircraft defences destroyed a Russian Su-25 jet in the Donetsk region.

Ukraine also kept up its long-range drone attacks on Russia’s rear logistical areas, setting fire to a fuel depot.

A Ukrainian security official told The Associated Press that an operation by the country’s military intelligence agency, known by its acronym Gur, struck oil depots in Russia’s Rostov and Kirov regions on Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly about the strikes, did not provide further details.

It would be the first known Ukrainian attack on the Kirov region, which is about 950 kilometres (600 miles) northeast of the Ukrainian border.

The governor of Kirov, Alexander Sokolov, said three Ukrainian drones fell near an oil depot in the region but did not damage it.