Russian drone and missile attacks on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro have killed at least five people, officials said.
Local governor Serhii Lysak wrote on Telegram that 39 other people were injured in the explosion early Wednesday morning. Officials said shops, schools and hospitals were damaged by the strike.
Lessak called the attack “malicious.” Videos shared on social media showed large amounts of smoke and flames billowing from the building after the explosion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack and reiterated his call for Western allies to provide his government with more air defense systems.
“Only two things can stop Russia’s terrorist acts – modern air defense systems and the long-range capabilities of our weapons,” he wrote on social media.
Dnipro, a city with a pre-war population of about 1 million, has been a frequent target of Russian attacks since the war began more than two years ago. Last year, a Russian missile hit a residential building in the city, killing 40 people.
Ukraine’s air force said it shot down six drones and five of seven missiles aimed at the city early Wednesday.
But images released by Mr Lessac after the shelling showed buildings in the city center torn apart, with glass shattered and scattered on the ground.
“The explosion was so strong that the wave hit me and I fell,” George, an elderly witness with a bandaged nose and bloodied face, told Reuters.
Mr Lysak said a 14-year-old girl was among the injured. Two other people with serious injuries were being treated in hospital, he added.
Regional Council Chairman Mykola Lukashuk condemned the “cynical terror” behavior of Russian troops. City officials have declared an official day of mourning.
Elsewhere, officials in Donetsk and Luhansk said two civilians were killed in overnight attacks in eastern Ukraine.
Russia has stepped up air strikes in Ukraine in recent months. Although Moscow denies targeting civilian infrastructure, the United Nations human rights monitoring mission said May was the deadliest month for civilians in nearly a year.
President Zelensky was making increasingly urgent demands for new air defense systems at the time, urging his Western allies to ignore Russian threats that such action could trigger an escalation in tensions.
On Tuesday, he met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has just taken over the rotating presidency of the European Council.
Orban has long been Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Europe and has often criticized the EU’s aid program for Ukraine. The men’s body language was less than enthusiastic during the tense meeting in Kiev, where Orban urged Zelensky to seek a ceasefire and speed up peace talks.
Elsewhere, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday it had captured key areas of the Chasiv Yar hilltop settlement. This small town in eastern Ukraine has been at the center of intense fighting for months.
The town has been flattened by relentless shelling and is seen as a potential staging area for Russian troops as they advance toward the remaining Ukrainian-controlled areas of the Donetsk region.
Kyiv has not commented on the claims.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said it was behind a fire on a Russian warship in the Baltic Sea in April.
GUR spokesman Andrei Yusov told Reuters that the agency was targeting the Serpukhov missile ship, which cooperates with the pro-Kiev group Freikorps.
“Due to acts of vandalism, [we] “We managed to destroy the ship from the inside and completely destroyed the communications and its means of automation,” the Corps said on its Telegram account.
