Russian missile kills toddler in recent attack on Ukraine

Rescue workers on Saturday pulled the body of a toddler from the rubble while searching for survivors of a Russian missile attack that pierced an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.

The missile was one of 16 of the Ukrainian authorities that breached air defenses among 76 missiles fired in Friday’s latest Russian attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, part of Moscow’s strategy to keep Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in the dark and cold this winter to permit.

Governor Valentyn Reznichenko of the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Kryvyi Rih is located, wrote on the Telegram social media app that “rescuers have recovered the body of a 1 1/2-year-old boy from under the rubble of a house destroyed by a Russian Rocket.” A total of four people were killed and 13 injured – four of them children – in the strike, authorities said.

The victims were “a 64-year-old woman and a young family with a young son,” he wrote.

Reznichenko said Russian forces’ pounding continued overnight, damaging power lines and homes in the towns of Nikopol, Marhanets and Chervonohryhorivka, which lie across the Dnieper from the Russian-held Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.

As of Saturday morning, Ukraine’s military command said Russian forces had updated the number of missiles fired in the latest attack to 98. It was not said how many in total were stopped by the air defenses.

Friday’s attack, which devastated many parts of central, eastern and southern Ukraine, was one of the largest attacks yet on the capital Kyiv in the war sparked by Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv came under fire from around 40 a.m. missiles on Friday, authorities said, although air defenses intercepted 37 of them.

Utility crews struggled to repair damaged power and water systems.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported Saturday that two-thirds of homes have been reconnected to the electricity grid and all have regained access to water. The subway system was also put back into service after serving as emergency shelter the previous day.

In Kryvyi Rih, 596 miners stuck underground due to rocket attacks were all rescued, Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul reported late Friday.