Apr 05, Kathmandu- A Russian ballistic missile strike on Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has killed 18 people, including nine children, officials say.

Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Serhiy Lysak said 61 people were injured after emergency operations were carried out overnight on Saturday.

Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the military administration of Kryvyi Rih, said the missile strike hit a residential area near a children's playground on Friday.

Unverified videos on social media showed bodies lying on the street, while another showed a plume of smoke rising into the evening sky.

Social media videos of the scene show a car burning while people can be heard screaming. "18... that many people were killed when the Russians fired missiles at Krivoy Rog. Nine of them were children," Lisak said on Telegram.

On Saturday, Russian air defense units said they had intercepted and destroyed 49 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Since taking office, US President Donald Trump has been pushing for a quick end to the more than three-year-old war. But despite talks with both sides, his administration has failed to broker a ceasefire.

Zelensky said the missile strikes on the city showed Russia had no interest in stopping the full-scale offensive launched in February 2022.

“There is only one reason this is continuing – Russia does not want a ceasefire and we see it. The whole world sees it,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected a US-Ukrainian proposal for an unconditional and complete ceasefire in March.
The Kremlin has accepted a US-proposed ceasefire in the Black Sea that is conditional on the West lifting some sanctions.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that Trump “cannot afford to get caught in the trap of endless negotiations” with Russia over the attack.
“We will know in weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace,” he said.

In his evening address, Zelensky accused Russia of treating diplomacy as “empty words.” “A ceasefire could have been achieved by now, and it is Putin who is refusing it,” he said.

Kryvyi Rih, in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, is about 60 kilometers from the front lines and has been a regular target of Russian drones and missiles.
Zelensky was born in the industrial city, which had a pre-war population of about 600,000.

Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian official tasked with countering disinformation, described the missile involved in the attack on Kryvyi Rih as an “Iskander.” The Iskander is a Russian ballistic missile system with a range of up to 500.

“This is a deliberate attack to kill a large number of people,” Kovalenko said.
A separate drone strike in Kryvyi Rih killed a 56-year-old woman and wounded seven others, according to Lysak.