The Russian strike on an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro was one of the deadliest attacks against civilians since the start of the war.
By MEGAN SPECIA, NICOLE TUNG and CASSANDRA VINOGRAD
The number of dead in a Russian attack on an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to 40, emergency officials said Monday, as rescuers found more bodies at the site of one of the deadliest attacks against civilians since the start of the war.
As search crews scoured the debris for survivors for a third consecutive day, details began to emerge about the lives lost. Two young mothers — Olha Usova and Iryna Solomatenko — were among the dead, along with Mykhailo Korenovskyi, a boxing coach and father of two, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense. One of the victims, Maria Lebid, was 15 years old, a Ukrainian official said.
“She was school president and ballroom dancer,” the official, Emine Dzheppar, the first deputy foreign minister, wrote on Twitter. “Her beautiful life dance was cut short.”
At least 75 people were wounded and 34 remained unaccounted for as of Monday afternoon, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said in a post on Telegram, the social messaging app. The strike Saturday at the nine-story residential building prompted renewed calls for Moscow to be charged with war crimes. In an address to Ukrainians on Sunday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was also critical to punish “those who grease the Russian propaganda machine.”
Switching to Russian, he then warned: “Your cowardly silence, your attempt to ‘wait out’ what is happening, will only end with those same terrorists coming after you one day.”
Hundreds of rescuers are working at the site, the emergency service said, and more than 8,000 tons of debris have been moved. Zelenskyy said Sunday night that the rescue operation would last “as long as there is even the slightest chance to save lives.”
“We are fighting for every person,” he said.