Kyiv: A Russian missile slammed into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home city on Wednesday, local authorities said, just as Kryvyi Rih was observing an official day of mourning for an attack the previous day that killed four civilians at a hotel.
The latest attack on the city struck civilian infrastructure, wounding eight people, local administration head Oleksandr Vilkul said on social media. Tuesday's attack, which also wounded five people, was part of a barrage of dozens of missiles and drones across Ukraine that Russia launched for a second consecutive day.
“When Kryvyi Rih is in mourning, the enemy attacks again. And it once again aims at civilians,” regional head Serhii Lysak said Wednesday. Russia stepped up its aerial attacks on Ukraine on Monday, firing more than 100 missiles and a similar number of drones in its biggest onslaught in weeks. The intensified campaign coincided with what could prove to be a decisive period of the war, which Russia launched on Feb. 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 World War II.