Russian missile attack in southern Ukraine kills at least 13 civilians, officials say

Kyiv, Jan 8: A daytime Russian missile attack on the southern Ukraine city of Zaporizhzhia killed at least 13 civilians and injured about 30 others Wednesday, officials said.

Footage posted on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Telegram channel showed civilians lying in a city street littered with debris. They were being treated by emergency services and taken away on gurneys.

Russia has frequently launched aerial attacks on civilian areas during the almost three-year war. Thousands of civilians have been killed in Europe's biggest conflict since World War II.

Zelenskyy and regional Gov Ivan Fedorov said Wednesday's attack killed at least 13 civilians. Minutes before the attack, Fedorov had warned of a threat of high-speed missiles and devastating glide bombs being fired at the Zaporizhzhia region.

Russian troops started launching the glide bombs at Zaporizhzhia in the middle of the afternoon, and at least two bombs struck residential buildings in the city, Fedorov said.

He announced that Thursday would be a day of mourning in the region.

“There is nothing more brutal than aerial bombing of a city, knowing that ordinary civilians will suffer," Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.

Zelenskyy said earlier Wednesday that countries wanting to end the war should offer Ukraine assurances about its future defense. Kyiv officials fear that any ceasefire or peace deal will just give the Kremlin time to rearm and invade again unless it is deterred by military force.

“To be honest, I believe that we have a right to demand serious security guarantees from … the countries that aim for the peace in the world,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy was responding at a news conference in Kyiv to comments the previous day by US President-elect Donald Trump that he understood Russia's opposition to neighbouring Ukraine joining NATO.

The United States, Germany, Hungary and Slovakia have stood in the way of Ukraine immediately joining the 32-nation alliance, Zelenskyy noted. The alliance has said only that the country is on an “irreversible path” to membership.

Earlier, the Ukrainian military said it struck a fuel storage depot deep inside Russia, causing a huge blaze at the facility that supplies an important Russian air base.

Russian officials acknowledged a major drone attack in the area, and said that authorities had set up an emergency command centre to fight the fire.

Ukraine's General Staff said that the assault hit the storage facility near Engels, in Russia's Saratov region, about 600 kilometres east of the Ukrainian border. The depot supplied a nearby airfield used by aircraft that launch missiles across the border into Ukraine, a statement on Facebook said.

Ukraine has been developing its arsenal of domestically produced long-range missiles and drones capable of reaching deep behind the front line as it faces restrictions on the range that its military can fire its Western-supplied missiles into Russia.

The attacks have disrupted Russian logistics in the war, which began on February 24, 2022, and embarrassed the Kremlin.