Photo: Zaporizhzhia regional administration

At least three people have been killed and another 16 were injured in a Russian missile strike on the southeast Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, regional Governor Ivan Fyodorov wrote on his Telegram channel on Tuesday.

A private medical clinic and residential buildings were struck in the mid-afternoon attack on Zaporizhzhia’s city centre, Fyodorov said, adding that the search and rescue operation was ongoing and that at least eight people are believed to be trapped under the rubble.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his condolences to the families of the victims in a post on Telegram, arguing that with each successive attack on a Ukrainian city the case was being made for Kyiv to be given more Western air defence systems to safeguard population centres from Russian missile strikes.

Zelensky added that whether or not to boost Ukraine’s air defences came down to “political decisions” made by Kyiv’s allies that could potentially “save thousands of lives and render Russian terror meaningless”.

Zaporizhzhia’s acting mayor, Rehina Harchenko, said on Telegram that Zaporizhzhia was holding on, “With pain in our hearts and tears in our eyes”.

While neither the Russian Defence Ministry nor the Kremlin have so far commented on the attack, Vladimir Putin continued to tout Russia’s newly combat-ready Oreshnik ballistic missiles in a meeting with Russia’s Council on Civil Society and Human Rights on Friday, in which he assured its members that Russia behaved “with caution and even restraint in all areas”, state news agency TASS reported.