Edmonton Journal ePaper

2 DEAD AS RUSSIAN MISSILES HIT CLINIC

Children among 30 wounded in overnight strike

OLENA HARMASH AND MAX HUNDER

KYIV • A Russian missile hit a clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, killing two people and wounding 30, including two children, in an attack that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a crime against humanity.

Video footage showed a devastated building with smoke pouring out of it and rescue workers looking on. Much of the upper floor of what appeared to be a three-storey building had been badly damaged. A corpse lay in the road nearby.

“Another (Russian) missile attack, another crime against humanity,” Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter.

He said a psychological clinic and a veterinary clinic had been hit, and added: “Only an evil state can fight against clinics. There can be no military purpose in this. It is pure Russian terror.”

Regional governor Serhiy Lysak said a 69-year-old man had been killed as he passed the clinic and another man's body had been pulled from the rubble.

He said 30 people had been wounded, including two children, and contact had not yet been made with three people thought to have been in the building when it was hit.

Ukraine's Defence Ministry called the attack a serious war crime under the Geneva Conventions, which set out how soldiers and civilians should be treated in war.

Russia's Defence Ministry said it had carried out an overnight strike on Ukrainian ammunition depots.

“The target of the strike has been achieved. All designated facilities were hit,” the RIA news agency quoted it as saying.

Moscow has dismissed allegations that its soldiers have committed war crimes and denies deliberately targeting civilians although it has bombarded cities across Ukraine since invading 15 months ago.

Elsewhere, Russia's southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine came under attack Friday from Ukrainian artillery fire, mortar shells and drones, authorities said, hours after two drones struck a Russian city in an area next to the annexed Crimea Peninsula.

A Russian S-300 missile hit a dam in the Karlivka district of Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine, threatening nearby settlements with flooding.

The town of Graivoron in Russia's Belgorod region, about 7 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, came under fire for several hours, damaging four houses, a store, a car, a gas pipeline and a power line, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported.

Closer to the frontier, a recreation centre, a shop and an empty house were damaged in the village of Glotovo. One woman was wounded when nearby Novaya Tavolzhanka was shelled, Gladkov said.

Earlier this week, the Belgorod region was the target of one of the most serious cross-border attacks from Ukraine since the war began 15 months ago. Details of the raid were murky. Russia blamed the Ukrainian armed forces, but two Russian groups said they were involved, with the aim of bringing down Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Officials in Russia's southern city of Krasnodar, in the region of the same name bordering Crimea, said two drones struck there. Witnesses told local media they heard something like a moped and then two explosions.

The blasts smashed a hole in the roof of one building and blew out windows in an apartment building.

“We just went to bed and then there was such a strong, terrible boom,” said resident Tatiana Safonova. “We ran outside. There were people running, but nothing else was going on.”

She said described the sound beforehand “like a growling, noisy moped.”

Krasnodar regional Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram that there were no casualties and that some buildings were damaged but essential infrastructure was unharmed.

Krasnodar Mayor Yevgeny Naumov said a residential building and an office building were damaged.

Drone attacks against Russian border regions have been a regular occurrence since the start of the invasion in February 2022, with attacks increasing last month. Earlier this month, an oil refinery in Krasnodar was attacked by drones on two straight days.

Ukraine's Defence Ministry on Thursday published video that appeared to show a marine drone heading for Russia's Ivan Khurs reconnaissance ship in the Black Sea. The video didn't show the drone hitting the ship.

The video followed reports by Russia's Defence Ministry on Wednesday that Ukraine had launched an unsuccessful attack on the ship.

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2023-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://edmontonjournal.pressreader.com/article/281840058042478

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