Nine children dead: Nightmarish end to missile attack on Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine

A Russian missile attack on Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has claimed the lives of at least 19 people, including nine children. It is one of the deadliest attacks since the beginning of the war. At least 68 people have been injured. The city has declared three days of mourning.

On Friday (April 4), the Russian army carried out two attacks on Kryvyi Rih. The first, a missile, hit a restaurant in a residential area with a playground next to it. Social media users reported horrifying scenes.

According to the head of the government’s Center for Counteracting Disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko, the Russians used an Iskander missile . The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that the target of the attack was a meeting place of Ukrainian soldiers with Western instructors. The government in Kiev denied these reports, calling them disinformation.

Late in the evening, the Russians attacked again, this time using a drone. The attack caused a residential building to catch fire, killing a 56-year-old woman and injuring seven people, including a three-month-old baby.

The Ukrainian air force said Saturday it had shot down 51 of 92 Russian drones last night, while 31 others were intercepted or neutralized using electronic warfare. Damage was reported in the Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions.