Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s hometown hit by Russian missile attack, killing 11 people

A missile attack in Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s hometown killed at least 11 people as Russian president Vladimir Putin warned he would create “sanitary zones” inside occupied areas to prevent strikes and raids on his country’s territory.

“More terrorist missiles, Russian killers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people,” Mr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday about the overnight strikes in Kryvyi Rih. Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted 11 of 14 Russian cruise missiles early on Tuesday.

After an early spring lull, Moscow has stepped up its air strike campaign, targeting Ukrainian energy networks and other civilian infrastructure. But a spate of attacks inside Russia has prompted Mr Putin to acknowledge the need to fortify his country’s own defences.

Speaking to a group of pro-Kremlin war bloggers on Tuesday, Mr Putin said the creation of a sanitary zone in occupied territory would put Ukraine “at a distance from which they won’t be able to strike our territory”, without specifying details.

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The apparent Ukrainian strikes inside Russia have proved an embarrassment for the Kremlin and stoked public criticism of Russia’s armed forces.

Mr Putin said Russia was working to identify Ukrainian sabotage groups allegedly behind the drone strikes and bombings on Russian territory. Ukraine has not admitted to carrying out the attacks and denies involvement in some of them, though officials in Kyiv have welcomed their results.

In Kryvyi Rih, mayor Oleksander Vilkul said six missiles were fired on his city, hitting five locations, none of which were military targets. In addition to the residential building, a storage facility housing consumer products was also hit. Rescue teams were working to find people believed to be trapped under the rubble. A power station was also struck, officials said, knocking out electricity for 9,000 residents.

Missile, drone and artillery strikes were also reported by officials in cities across frontline and border areas, including Chernihiv north of Kyiv, Kharkiv in the northeast and Zaporizhzhia in the south. Several civilians were reported to have been killed, and scores more injured.

Ukraine, its western backers and human rights organisations have repeatedly accused Russian forces of conducting indiscriminate strikes on civilian buildings and public infrastructure since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion nearly 16 months ago.

Mr Putin on Monday claimed Ukrainian forces were using the same tactics on the occupied eastern city of Donetsk – without providing evidence of the attacks.

“I can’t understand in any way why the enemy is striking residential areas,” he said at a ceremony in the Kremlin. “What for? Why? What is the point? There is no military point, there is none,” he said.

[ Ukraine retakes more villages as impact of dam destruction spirals ]

Tuesday’s strikes came days after Ukraine’s army reported its first modest gains in a counteroffensive that aimed to liberate about 18 per cent of territory still occupied by Russian forces in the eastern and southern regions of the country.

Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, said late on Monday that troops had liberated seven occupied villages in the regions of eastern Donetsk and southern Zaporizhzhia.

On Tuesday, Mr Putin said Ukraine had “not had any success” at any of the positions it attacked on the front lines during its counteroffensive and claimed, without providing evidence, that Ukrainian forces had suffered “catastrophic” casualties.

However, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russia-based Wagner paramilitary group, whose troops have been fighting in Ukraine, said Kyiv’s forces were “doing everything competently” in the Zaporizhzhia region.

They were “cutting off certain units in the Zaporizhzhia direction, while now they are covering their left flank”, he told reporters on Tuesday, adding that “not enough is being done to confront the enemy”.

– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023