Russian glide bombs, drones and a ballistic missile smashed into several cities across southern and eastern Ukraine on Monday.
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A Russian missile hit a five-story residential building in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Monday, killing three children and a woman, according to local authorities.
Governor Serhiy Lysak added that another 14 people were injured. A 10-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy are among the injured. At least five people were rescued from the building, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said.
The attack came as Russian glide bombs, drones and a ballistic missile smashed into cities across southern and eastern Ukraine on Monday.
The major cities targeted by Russia are near the roughly 1,000-kilometer front line.
Russian drones hammered the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing five people and injuring a 45-year-old woman, local authorities said. Around two dozen people sought psychological help following the attack that damaged houses and stores, officials added.
Mykolaiv, about 60 kilometres northwest of the front line in the Kherson region, frequently comes under Russian attack.
An overnight attack on Zaporizhzhia, also in the south, with three powerful glide bombs killed one person and injured 21, including a 4-year-old boy, Ukraine’s National Police said. The strikes partially destroyed a two-story apartment building and damaged a dormitory.
Zelenskyy counting on 'unity in Europe'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia has recently intensified strikes that have long tormented civilian areas, in an apparent effort to unnerve Ukrainians and wear down their willingness to keep up a war that is approaching its 1000-day milestone.
“Every day, every night, Russia commits the same terror,” Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “Except that an increasing number of civilian objects are becoming targets.”
Both Russia and Ukraine are waiting to see how Washington will change its policy on the war after Donald Trump takes office as the US president in January. The US is the biggest provider of military help to Ukraine, but Trump has chided the Biden administration for giving Kyiv tens of billions of dollars of aid.
Zelenskyy met on Monday with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Brorell, and Estonia's defence minister, Hanno Pevkur, in Kyiv. He thanked both for their support throughout his country's fight against the Russian invasion.
"We have to count on unity in Europe," Zelenskyy said during his meeting with Pevkur. "Especially today, when we don't know what circumstances will be in the nearest future."
Zelenskyy noted that Borrell had to be taken to a shelter before their meeting.
Ukrainian forces are being slowly pushed backward in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is bringing its greater military might to bear.
Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukraine would conduct a “substantial reinforcement” in areas near the Donetsk settlements of Kurakhove and Pokrovsk, where Ukraine’s army is in danger of being overrun.
He added that Ukraine is holding its positions in Russia’s Kursk border region, where Western and Ukrainian officials say Russia is being helped by thousands of newly arrived North Korean troops.