KYIV: A missile demolished an apartment block on Thursday (Oct 6) in a Ukrainian region that Moscow says it has annexed, killing seven people, a Ukrainian official said, as discontent mounted within Russia about the handling of the war by the top brass.
The missile attack on the city of Zaporizhzhia in the southern region of the same name left some people buried under rubble, the regional governor said. He added at least five people are missing.
There was no immediate comment from Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine has begun to unravel after a Ukrainian counteroffensive in which thousands of square miles of territory have been retaken since the start of September, including dozens of settlements in recent days.
Thousands of Russian troops have retreated after the front line crumbled, first in the northeast, and, since the beginning of this week, also in the south. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address on Thursday that Kyiv’s forces recaptured more than 500 sq km of territory and dozens of settlements in the southern Kherson region alone in October.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield accounts.
In rare, but growing, public criticism of Russia’s top military officials, Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russian-backed administration in Kherson region, slammed “generals and ministers” in Moscow for failing to understand the problems on the front lines.
There was no immediate comment from Russia’s defence ministry.
Discontent has begun to bubble up among even loyalist state TV hosts.
“Please explain to me what the general staff’s genius idea is now?” Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most prominent Russian talk show hosts, said on his livestream channel.
“Do you think time is on our side? They (the Ukrainians) have hugely increased their amount of weapons … But what have you done in that time?”
RUBBLE, SMOKE AND DUST
Images of the aftermath of Thursday’s missile strike showed a gaping, rubble-strewn hole where a five-storey apartment block used to stand next to a wine shop.
Reuters reporters saw firefighters bringing a father and son down a ladder and talking to an older man still trapped under rubble.
Eduard, a 49-year-old man who survived the attack, said he was woken at around five in the morning by a strong explosion. “The room filled with smoke and dust. I jumped up to go see what had happened,” he said.
Regional governor Starukh said emergency crews had rescuyed 21 people. He had earlier put the number of injured at 12, including a three-year-old child.
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