Death Toll Rises to 20 in Russian Strike on Zaporizhzhia as Zelensky Condemns U.S. Diesel Deal
The death toll from Saturday's Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia climbed to 20, including three children, as President Zelensky accused Moscow of answering a U.S. decision to lift Russian diesel sanctions — and a separate missile strike hit a Kyiv restaurant.
Twenty people, including three children, were killed when Russia dropped five glide bombs on residential buildings in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday, according to Reuters — a day after President Donald Trump announced a deal to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports.
“Today, Russia said thank you for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in some of his sharpest criticism yet of the White House, according to Reuters.
A 6-year-old girl was among those killed when one strike reduced part of an apartment block to rubble, Reuters reported. Her grandfather, Anatoliy Chumniy, stood sobbing over her body after rescuers pulled it from the wreckage. Eighteen others were wounded in the attack on the industrial city, whose outskirts lie less than 30 km (20 miles) from the front line. A senior official in Zaporizhzhia, Mykhailo Semikin, said Russia had hit several locations simultaneously in the early hours of Saturday.
Third mass-casualty attack this week
It was the third mass-casualty attack on Ukraine this week. Nearly 80 civilians were killed in Russian strikes on Wednesday and Thursday, including at least 30 killed by a bomb in the eastern garrison city of Kramatorsk and 22 others by a missile in the town of Pryluky, 80 miles east of Kyiv, Reuters reported.
“Last night provided yet more confirmation that Russia perceives any easing of pressure as a signal that it can supposedly keep fighting, that it can supposedly keep dropping bombs on cities. Different signals are needed,” Zelenskiy said.
Kyiv struck as drones fill the sky
A missile attack on Saturday afternoon also hit a restaurant, wounding seven people in Kyiv, according to Reuters. Russian drones flew over Kyiv throughout the day, part of what Reuters described as a vast new wave of bombardment of the capital, the heaviest since the early days of the war. Parts of Kyiv and the surrounding region were left without power on Saturday, bringing the city’s metro trains to a complete halt for the second time this week. Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed its drones had struck a data-processing centre in Kyiv and a cargo ship carrying military supplies to the Ukrainian port of Odesa.
The strikes came as Ukrainian and European officials held talks with U.S. negotiators in Miami on Friday aimed at developing a common proposal for ending the war, and Trump announced the diesel deal while the negotiations were underway. The Ukrainian delegation was headed home on Saturday, presidential aide Dmytro Lytvyn was cited by the Interfax Ukraine news agency as saying. Russian President Vladimir Putin said after a call with Trump that an immediate resumption of peace talks was unlikely, citing Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow. Kyiv had urged Washington to increase pressure on Moscow, while Trump has criticised Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, which he claims have driven up global prices. Kyiv has said it wants a total halt on all energy strikes by both sides as Moscow pummels Ukraine’s power grid.
Reporting based on coverage by Reuters.
