DNIPRO, UKRAINE (Reuters) Jan,15– The death toll from a Russian missile attack on an apartment building in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro rose to 21 on Sunday as rescuers dug through a huge pile of rubble looking for survivors.
At least 35 people are missing and 73 are injured, regional council chairman Mykola Lukaszuk wrote in a message on her Telegram app.
“Burn in hell, murderers of Russia,” he wrote.
Buildings in Dnipro, a city in east-central Ukraine, were partially destroyed in a series of attacks on Saturday.
On the ground, fighting continued to concentrate on the cities of Soledar and Bakhmut in the eastern Donbass region. Rescuers searched all night for survivors. Sunday morning they were seen punching and kicking piles of shattered concrete and twisted metal.
In Sunday’s statement on the previous day’s airstrikes, the Russian Defense Ministry did not name Dnipro as a specific target.
In a video address on Saturday night, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reiterated his appeal to Western allies to use more weapons to end “Russian terrorism” and attacks on civilian targets.
Saturday’s offensive comes as Western powers consider sending main battle tanks to Kyiv and the government announced the latest pledge of military aid ahead of a meeting with Ukrainian allies in Ramstein, Germany next Friday. This was done during the presentation. On Saturday, Britain followed France and Poland in pledging more weapons and said it would send 14 Challenger 2 main battle tanks in the coming weeks, along with other advanced artillery support.
The first deployment of Western tanks to Ukraine is likely to be seen by Moscow as an escalation of the conflict. The Russian embassy in London said the tanks would prolong the confrontation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion on February 24, saying Kyiv’s relations with the West threatened Russia’s security. Ukraine and its allies call it a one-sided war to conquer territory.
The conflict has killed thousands, displaced millions from their homes and reduced many cities to rubble.
In the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, which has become the focus of Russian expansion, Ukrainian forces have struggled to maintain control of the small salt-mining town of Soledar.
Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for the Eastern Command of Ukraine, told his Ukrainian TV that in the past 24 hours, he had shelled the area around Soledar and Bakhmut 234 times.
Russia said on Friday that its forces had taken control of her 10,000 Soledar, whose pre-war population was 10,000, a small advance but a Russia that has endured months of battlefield setbacks. It will have a psychological effect on the military. Ukraine claimed on Saturday that its forces were fighting to hold the city, but officials said the situation was difficult as street fighting escalated and Russian forces were advancing from different directions.
“Our soldiers are repelling enemy attacks at all hours of the day and night,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Marial said on Saturday. “The enemy has suffered many casualties, but continues to carry out the criminal orders under his command.”
Putin says what he calls special military operations show positive trends and hopes Russian soldiers will continue to make profits after Soledar.
