Search and rescue operations after the rocket attack are still going on in Zaporizhia. The death toll has since risen to eleven. Among them is an infant.
The death toll in a block of flats in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia after a Russian rocket attack has risen to eleven, according to authorities. An eight-month-old girl was also rescued from the rubble, the Ukrainian civil defense announced on its Telegram channel. "The girl died along with her family." Search and recovery operations continued after this week's rocket attack. More victims are believed to be buried under the rubble.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyj had announced retaliation after the attack. "We will react militarily and legally to today's brutal Russian rocket attack on Zaporizhia," said Zelenskyy on Thursday in his nightly video address. "The occupier will inevitably feel our strength, the power of justice in the truest sense of the word."
A multi-storey residential building in the southern Ukrainian city was hit by a rocket during the Russian air raid on Thursday night. Zaporizhia is the capital of the region of the same name in south-eastern Ukraine that was annexed by Russia in the autumn. Russia has never taken the city, which had 700,000 inhabitants before the war.
The front is currently less than 50 kilometers from the city. Zaporizhia is therefore relatively often the target of Russian rocket and artillery attacks.
The nuclear power plant occupied by Russia is also located in Zaporizhia. The site of Europe's largest nuclear power plant has been hit several times during the Ukraine war and has fueled fears of a nuclear accident. At the end of February, around 20 detonations were apparently heard near the plant, said IAEA chief Rafael Grossi, citing the UN agency experts stationed in the power plant. In the recent past, there has been an increasing security presence on the premises.
