The aftermath of a Russian missile strike on a five-storey apartment block in Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, 11 November 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE / STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE
Four people were killed and 14 others were injured in a Russian missile strike on the city of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region on Monday, the regional authorities announced.
The missile struck a five-storey residential building on Monday morning, Dnipropetrovsk region Governor Serhiy Lysak said, adding that rescuers had recovered the body of a 32-year-old woman from under the rubble of the building on Monday evening.
By the end of the rescue operation on Tuesday morning, the bodies of three children aged 10, 2, and 2 months old had also been recovered from the ruins, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said. A criminal investigation into Russia’s “violation of the laws and customs of war” for “intentional murder” has been opened, it added.
The chairman of the Dnipropetrovsk regional parliament, Mykola Lukashuk, named those killed in the attack as Olena Kulyk and her three children Kyrylo, Demyd and Ulyana, adding that Kulyk’s husband and the children’s father, Maksym, had been the family’s sole survivor.
“Everyone who knew them says they were truly kind-hearted people”, local news outlet Svoi said of the family, adding that Olena and Maksym had been involved in charity work with the homeless and orphans in the city.
Almost 200 rescuers and police worked at the scene of the attack for nearly 24 hours, managing to rescue five people from under the rubble, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. A further 12 survivors of the attack are now receiving psychological support.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who hails from Kryvyi Rih himself, said the attack underscored Ukraine’s need for “weapons to defend against Russian terror and stronger international support to make diplomacy real and powerful”.
“Every day and night, Russia conducts the same terror, with an increasing number of civilian targets coming under attack. Russia seeks only to prolong the war, and each strike contradicts any of its claims about diplomacy”, Zelensky said, warning that “without principled decisions and robust support for Ukraine, Russia will have no incentive to pursue peace and will only look for new targets”.