2 Ukrainian women are pulled alive from rubble hours after Russian missile strike
KYIV, Ukraine — Rescue crews pulled two women from rubble several hours after a Russian missile struck a medical clinic in southern Ukraine, killing nine people and wounding 22 others, authorities said Wednesday.
The women called rescue services to say they were buried by debris for seven hours after the attack late Tuesday in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s Emergency Services said, as deadly Russian strikes on civilian areas continue in the almost three-year war.
Meanwhile, the United States warned that Russia may be poised to launch its lethal new intermediate-range ballistic Oreshnik missile against Ukraine again soon.
Russia first fired the missile in a Nov. 21 attack against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Surveillance camera video of the strike showed huge fireballs piercing the darkness and slamming into the ground at astonishing speed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has hailed the Oreshnik’s capability, saying its multiple warheads that plunge toward a target at Mach 10 are so powerful that the use of several in one conventional strike could be as devastating as a nuclear attack.
Ukraine’s Western allies are sending more aid to help it keep fighting Russia’s invasion, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Zaporizhzhia strike showed that his country still needs more air defense systems.
He urged Western partners to send weaponry they are holding in their arsenals.
Air defense systems that Ukraine’s allies possess “should save lives, and not gather dust in storage bases,” Zelensky said late Tuesday in his daily address to the nation.
Donald Trump calls for an immediate cease-fire in Russia’s war on Ukraine, and the president-elect renews warnings that he’s open to leaving NATO.
Ukraine kept up long-range attacks on areas behind Russian lines that are supporting its war effort.
A Ukrainian drone attack caused a blaze at an industrial facility in Russia’s Bryansk region, Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said. Air defenses downed 14 Ukrainian drones over the Bryansk region early Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Also, a Ukrainian missile attack on the city of Taganrog in the Rostov region early Wednesday damaged an industrial plant, regional Gov. Yuri Slusar said.
Zelensky thanked Ukrainian forces for hitting what he called “military facilities on the territory of Russia, as well as facilities of the fuel and energy complex.”
“It is precisely such long range and accuracy that step-by-step bring Russia back to reality — to the reality that the war must be ended,” he said on Telegram.
It wasn’t possible to verify either side’s claims.
Novikov writes for the Associated Press.
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