WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian strike kills 13 in Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia

A Russian guided bomb attack on Wednesday killed at least 13 people and injured 63 in Ukraine's southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, authorities said.

The blast left bodies strewn across a road alongside injured residents. Public transport was also damaged in the strike.

Prosecutors in the region said 63 people had been injured. Rescue work had been completed at the site of the attack.

High-rise apartment blocks were damaged along with an industrial facility and other infrastructure, Ukraine's prosecutor general office said on Telegram. The debris hit a tram and a bus with passengers inside, it added.

As emergency workers tried to resuscitate a man, raging flames, smoke and burnt cars could be seen in the background.

Russian troops had used two guided bombs to hit a residential area, the regional governor Ivan Fedorov told reporters.

At least four of the injured were rushed to hospital in serious condition, Fedorov said, adding that Thursday would be an official day of mourning.

"There is nothing more cruel than launching aerial bombs on a city, knowing that ordinary civilians will suffer," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on X, urging Ukraine's Western allies to step up pressure on Russia.

Regional authorities reported further explosions after the first strike hit.

Fedorov said Russian troops shelled the town of Stepnohirsk, south of Zaporizhzhia, killing two people. Two residents were pulled alive from underneath rubble.

Russia regularly carries out air strikes on the Zaporizhzhia region, which its forces partially occupy, and its capital. Moscow claims to have annexed the Ukrainian region along with four others including Crimea.

Public broadcaster Suspilne also reported two people killed and 10 injured in attacks on several centres in the southern region of Kherson, also partially occupied by Russian forces.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian army captures 18 Ukrainian servicemen west of DPR's Kurakhovo

Eighteen Ukrainian servicemen have been taken prisoner west of the Kurakhovo settlement in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

"Units of the Battlegroup South have taken more favorable positions. They defeated the formations of two mechanized and an air mobile brigades of the Ukrainian army in the areas of Seversk, Belogorovka, Chasov Yar, Vasyukovka and Yantarnoye in the DPR. Three counterattacks by enemy assault groups were repulsed. Ukraine lost more than 280 servicemen; 18 soldiers of the 46th air mobile brigade were captured west of Kurakhovo," it said.

Russia’s army also destroyed a tank, an infantry fighting vehicle, a US-made M113 armored personnel carrier, seven pickup trucks, two artillery pieces and an ammunition depot.

Air defenses

"Air defense means shot down six rockets of the US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launcher system and 105 fixed-wing drones," the ministry said.

It noted that a total of 652 airplanes, 283 helicopters, 39,723 unmanned aerial vehicles, 590 anti-aircraft missile systems, 20,290 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,507 multiple rocket launchers, 20,284 field artillery and mortar guns, and 29,983 items of special military vehicles have been destroyed since the beginning of the special military operation.

Reuters/ Tass