KYIV — Ukrainian officials say a Russian missile strike on the city of Zaporozhzhia has killed at least 23 people and wounded 28.
Zaporizhzhia Regional Governor Oleksandr Starukh said in an online statement Friday that Russian forces targeted a humanitarian convoy heading to Russian-occupied territory. Online video purportedly of the site of the attack shows bodies lying motionless next to a cars with their windows blown out.
Starukh said those in the convoy planned to travel into Russian-occupied territory to pick up their relatives and then take them to safety. He said rescuers were at the site of the attack.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office said four of 16 S-300 missiles that Russia launched struck a car market as well as an area where civilians had gathered leaving to pick up relatives.
Russia did not immediately acknowledge the strike that comes as Moscow prepares to annex four regions into Russia following an internationally condemned, Kremlin-orchestrated “referendum” vote.
Zaporozhzhia, the capital city of the Zaporozhzhia region, remains in Ukrainian hands. THe region's Russian-occupied areas were included in the sham vote.
KEY DEVELOPMENTS:
— Russian strike kills 23 as Kremlin to annex Ukraine regions
— Russia opens more border draft offices amid call-up exodus
— Hundreds of kids from east Ukraine stranded in Russian camps
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
KYIV — Ukrainian officials in the Zaporizhzhia region have declared Oct 1 as a day of mourning for the 23 civilians who were killed following a Russia missile strike on the outskirts of Zaporizhzhia.
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KYIV —: A Ukranian official says there were no military facilities or equipment situated in the Zaporizhzhia area were Russia missile strikees killed 23 people and wounded 28.
Ukraine’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said in an online statement there were “just cars and peaceful civilians” with women and children among them.
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KYIV — Russian state media are accusing Ukraine of carrying out the Zaporizhzhia attack on its own citizens, without providing any evidence to support the claim.
Russian forces have repeatedly targeted Ukrainian civilians in the fighting since the war began in February.
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KYIV — Russian-installed officials in the southern Kherson region said Thursday that a Ukrainian missile strike on the city of Kherson killed a deputy head of the region’s pro-Kremlin administration. A report in Russian state news agency RIA Novosti offered no details as to when the alleged strike took place, saying only that it hit the center of Kherson. Officials in Kyiv have not commented on the alleged attack.
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KYIV — Russian and Western analysts say Ukrainian forces have likely encircled the Russian-occupied city of Lyman as Kyiv pushes on in an eastern offensive.
Lyman, a city some 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, had been a key node for ground communications and Russian military operations in the region.
Analysts said Friday it appears Russia faces a last stand with reservists and some tank units as Ukraine has cut off all routes out of the city.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, citing Russian reports, said the situation had become “extremely difficult” for the BARS-13 detachment and the 752nd Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 20th Combined Arms Army in the area.
If Ukraine takes Lyman, that allows Kyiv to push into Russian-occupied Luhansk, which just took part in Moscow’s internationally criticized, gunpoint referendums.
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KYIV — The British military says newly mobilized Russian troops coming into Ukraine are equipped with poor medical supplies with them.
The British Defense Ministry said Friday medical knowledge and supplies remain low, with some soldiers having to buy their own modern tourniquets. That mirrors videos and photos online suggesting some soldiers are being supplied with Soviet-era first aid kits.
The ministry added that the Russian troops' lack of confidence in sufficient medical provision is “almost certainly contributing to a declining state of morale and lack of willingness to undertake offensive operations in many units in Ukraine."
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KYIV — Russia struck other Ukrainian cities overnight with heavy rocket barrages including the city of Dnipro where Iskander missiles struck a transportation company.
Valentin Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said at least one person was killed and five others were wounded.
Mikolaiv region Chief Vitaliy Kim said Russian missile strike on Mikolaiv damaged a high rise and wounded eight people.
Ukraine's air force said Russia again launched Iranian-made suicide drones around the Black Sea port city of Odesa and the city of Nikolaev, some of which air defense shot down and others that struck targets.
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UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council has scheduled a vote for Friday afternoon on a resolution that would condemn Russia for its “illegal so-called referenda” in four Ukrainian regions and declare that they “have no validity.”
The U.S.- and Albanian-sponsored resolution would call on all countries not to recognize any alterations to the status of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. It would reaffirm the U.N. commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence within its internationally recognized borders.
The Kremlin has announced plans to move on annexing Russian-controlled areas of the four regions Friday, and Russia is certain to veto the resolution.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said earlier this week that if that happens the U.S. and Albania will put the resolution to a vote in the 193-member General Assembly where there are no vetoes.
The draft resolution, obtained late Thursday by The Associated Press, would order Russia to “desist and refrain from actions aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
It would also demand the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine.
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is denouncing the referendums underpinning Russia’s planned annexation of four Ukrainian regions as a “sham” and vows that the United States will never recognize the land as Russian territory.
Speaking Thursday to Pacific island leaders in Washington, Biden said: “The so-called referenda was a sham, an absolute sham. The results were manufactured in Moscow.”
He called the hastily arranged election a “flagrant, flagrant violation of the U.N. charter.”
Biden commented a day after his administration said it has concluded that Moscow falsified results of the referendums and forced people to cast ballots under duress.
— Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
