By Marc Santora
A day after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine appeared to warn of more attacks inside Russia, two Russian missiles slammed into a residential building and university complex in his hometown, Kryvyi Rih on Monday, killing at least six people and injuring dozens of others, Ukrainian officials said.
The unusually pointed warning from Ukraine’s leader followed a series of apparent Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, suggesting that Kyiv is stepping up its efforts to bring the war home to Russians. But Russia’s weapons have proved far deadlier for civilians, as they were again Monday in the steel-producing central Ukrainian city.
Serhii Lysak, the head of the region’s military administration, said six people had been killed and 75 injured. More than 20 of those were hospitalized, he wrote in a message on Telegram.
Shortly after the attack, Zelenskyy posted video from the scene that showed smoke pouring from a building that had a gaping hole where several upper floors had been. Hours later he said a child and her mother were among the dead, and that it appeared Russia had used ballistic missiles in the strike.
Last month, a Russian strike killed at least 11 people in Kryvyi Rih, which is about 100 miles from the front line in Ukraine’s east.
Russian forces also shelled 130 towns and villages along the front line Monday, with some of the most intense fire directed at the southern port city of Kherson on the west bank of the Dnieper River, Ukrainian officials said. Four people were killed and 17 wounded in the shelling of the city, Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential office, wrote on Telegram.