Kyiv, Ukraine – The death toll from a Russian missile attack over the weekend on an apartment building in the southeastern city of Dnipro has risen to 40, authorities said Monday, as Western analysts pointed to signs the Kremlin was preparing for a protracted war in Ukraine after nearly 11 deaths. . months of fighting.
About 1,700 people lived in the multi-storey building, and search and rescue teams have worked nonstop since Saturday’s strike to locate victims and survivors in the wreckage. The regional administration said 39 people have been rescued so far and 30 others are still missing. Authorities said at least 75 were injured.
The reported death toll made it one of the deadliest attacks on Ukrainian civilians since before the summer, according to the Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project. Residents said that the residential tower does not include any military installations.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, called the strike and others like it “inhumane aggression” because it directly targeted civilians. “There will be no impunity for these crimes,” he said in a tweet Sunday.
Asked about the strike on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian military did not target residential buildings and noted that the Dnipro building was hit as a result of Ukrainian air defense actions.
The strike on the building came amid a wider barrage of Russian cruise missiles across Ukraine. On Sunday, the Ukrainian military said it did not have the means to intercept the type of Russian missile that hit the apartment building in Dnipro.
Heavy fighting continued on Monday in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, with military analysts saying both sides were likely suffering heavy troop losses. An independent verification of the developments was not possible.
Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province make up the Donbass, a vast industrial region on the border with Russia that Russian President Vladimir Putin has identified as a focus since the start of the war. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv forces there since 2014.
Related: Women’s solar-powered lanterns bring light to Ukraine facing power outages from Russian attacks
The Russian and Belarusian air forces began joint exercises on Monday in Belarus, which borders Ukraine and served as a staging ground for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. The Belarusian Defense Ministry said the exercises would continue until February 1. Russia sent its warplanes to Belarus to conduct the exercises.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, has reported indications of the Kremlin taking steps to turn the invasion of Ukraine into a “major conventional war” after months of embarrassing military setbacks.
The think tank said that what Moscow calls a “special military operation” aimed to capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, within weeks and install a Kremlin-friendly regime there, but that Russian forces eventually withdrew from the vicinity of Kyiv. Then came the successful Ukrainian counter-offensive in the final months before the onset of winter which slowed the military advance.
“The Kremlin is likely to prepare for decisive strategic action in the next six months aimed at regaining the initiative and ending Ukraine’s current series of operational successes,” the Institute for the Study of War said in a report released late Sunday.
He cited reports indicating that Russia’s military leadership is in “serious preparations” for an expanded mobilization effort, preserving mobilized personnel for future use, while striving to boost military-industrial production and adjust its command structure.
This means that Ukraine’s Western allies “will need to continue to support Ukraine over the long term,” the think tank said.
NATO member states have sought in recent days to reassure Ukraine that it will stay the course. The UK has pledged tanks and new and expanded combat training for Ukrainian forces of the US military began in Germany on Sunday.
Other developments on Monday:
– Russian forces bombed the city of Kherson and the Kherson region, killing three people and wounding 14 others in the past 24 hours, said the region’s governor Yaroslav Yanushevich. In the city of Kherson, the bombing damaged a hospital, a children’s disability center, a shipyard, important infrastructure, and residential buildings.
– The deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Kirillo Tymoshenko, said that Russian forces bombed the city of Zaporizhia, damaging the industrial infrastructure and injuring five people, including two children.
– Russian air defenses shot down seven drones on Monday over the Black Sea near the Crimean port of Sevastopol, said Mikhail Razvogaev, head of Sevastopol, which was commissioned by Russia.
The video in the player above is from a previous report.
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