The death toll from Russian drone strikes on a shopping complex in Kryvyi Rih, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, rose to 16 on Saturday, local authorities said.
Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the Kryvyi Rih Defense Council, said search and rescue operations were still underway, with nine people, including two children, still missing.
“Sixteen civilians from Kryvyi Rih died in the Russian strike. One hundred thirty people were injured, including 25 children,” Vilkul said on Telegram.
As of 7:30 a.m. local time (4:30 a.m. GMT), 61 injured people remained hospitalized, including 23 in serious condition, he said.
Vilkul added that Kryvyi Rih would observe a day of mourning Sunday to honor those killed in the attack.
On Friday, Vilkul said the city’s largest shopping complex had been attacked by Russian drones, sparking a fire.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack an “act of terrorism,” saying, “The attack drones struck in two waves. Half an hour after the first hit and the fire, there was a second strike targeting the emergency responders.”
Russian authorities have not commented on the strike.
Ukrainian authorities also reported overnight strikes across the country early Saturday. The Kyiv City Military Administration said a fire broke out at an unspecified warehouse in the capital’s Darnytskyi district after a ballistic missile threat was reported over the city about an hour earlier.
“According to preliminary information, unfortunately, there is one dead and one injured. The relevant services are working. The information is being clarified,” the statement said, without providing further details.
Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, CEO of Ukraine’s national railway company Ukrzaliznytsia, said in a statement posted on Facebook that one of the company’s enterprises was hit by ballistic missiles.
He also said the Rozdilna railway station in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region was damaged, adding that the consequences of the attack were being addressed and that railway traffic had not been affected.
Ukraine’s air force said it had downed 182 of 217 drones, as well as nine missiles, launched by Russia overnight.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a morning statement that it had launched a massive strike against transportation infrastructure facilities and a logistics center in Kyiv and the surrounding Kyiv region.
It said the strike hit the Darnytsia locomotive depot, where “technical maintenance and repair of the locomotive fleet was carried out, ensuring the transportation of weapons and military equipment for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
It also claimed strikes on a logistics center in the city of Brovary in the Kyiv region, as well as on “warehouses with military equipment and fuel tanks intended for the Ukrainian Armed Forces” at the Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi ports in the Odesa region.
In a later statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses had shot down 457 Ukrainian drones overnight over 15 regions, as well as over the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov and Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, governor of Russia’s Samara region, said the region was targeted in a “massive” Ukrainian drone strike, claiming several dozen drones were shot down.
“Damage was sustained at one industrial facility. Additionally, a hit was recorded at the Ozon logistics complex,” Fedorishchev said, adding that several casualties had been reported and were receiving medical treatment.
Moscow and Kyiv have increasingly targeted each other’s logistics centers, as well as port and energy infrastructure, in recent months.
Both sides deny deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and maintain that their strikes are directed at military targets or facilities linked to military activities.
