DNIPRO, Ukraine
\nUkraine said there was little hope of pulling any more survivors from the rubble of an apartment block in the city of Dnipro on Sunday, a day after the building was hit during a major Russian missile attack, with dozens of people expected to have died.
\nPresident Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a child was among 25 people confirmed dead so far and 73 people had been wounded, including 13 children. Thirty-nine people had been rescued but a further 43 were missing, he said on the Telegram messaging app.
\nEmergency workers said they had heard people screaming for help from underneath piles of debris from the nine-storey apartment block in the south-central city and were using moments of silence to help direct their efforts. Freezing temperatures added to rescuers\u2019 concerns.
\nA group of firefighters found a lightly-dressed woman still alive more than 18 hours after the attack. They carried her to safety in their arms as dozens of grim-faced residents, both young and old, watched in horror from the street.
\nA body had earlier been retrieved by firefighters and lifted from the ruins on a stretcher using a crane.
\n\u201cThe chances of saving people now are minimal,\u201d Dnipro\u2019s Mayor Borys Filatov told Reuters. I think the number of dead will be in the dozens.\u201d
\nFilatov said a Russian Kh-22 missile had struck the apartment block in the east-central, rocket-making city of Dnipro, destroying two stairwells totalling around 76 flats.
\nRussia fired two waves of missiles at Ukraine on Saturday, striking targets across the country as fighting raged on the battlefield in the eastern towns of Soledar and Bakhmut.
\nMoscow, which invaded last February, has been pounding Ukraine\u2019s energy infrastructure with missiles and drones since October, causing sweeping blackouts and disruptions to central heating and running water.
\nIn a statement on Sunday about its previous day of strikes, the Russian defence ministry did not mention Dnipro as a specific target.
\n\u201cAll assigned objects were hit. The targets of the strike have been achieved,\u201d it said.
\nRescuers toiled through the night searching for survivors. On Sunday morning, they could be seen punching and kicking through heaped mounds of smashed concrete and twisted metal.
\n\u201cTwo rooms on the second floor remain practically intact but buried,\u201d Oleh Kushniruk, a deputy director of the regional branch of Ukraine\u2019s State Emergency Service, said on television.
\nA spokesperson for Ukraine\u2019s southern command said Russia had fired only half of the cruise missiles it had deployed to the Black Sea during Saturday\u2019s attacks.
\n\u201cThis indicates that they still have certain plans,\u201d said the spokesperson, Natalia Humeniuk. \u201cWe must understand that they can still be used.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DNIPRO, Ukraine Ukraine said there was little hope of pulling any more survivors from the rubble of an apartment block in the city of Dnipro on Sunday, a day after the building was hit during a major Russian missile attack, with dozens of people expected to have died. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a child was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-307684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n