At least seven people were killed Thursday in an attack on a village in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporiyia, prompting Ukrainian and Russian authorities to cross new accusations over the authorship of the attacks.
Russian troops have fired, according to Ukrainian authorities, at least three missiles at the town of Vilniansk at around 5:00 a.m. (local time) this morning, one of the projectiles hitting a residential building housing three families.
After rescuers, utility workers and volunteers dismantled the rubble, Kirilo Timoshenko, the ‘number two’ in the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, confirmed on his Telegram profile at least seven dead, with the first preliminary toll being two dead, the head of the military administration of Zaporiyia, Oleksandr Staruj, said earlier.
«Regarding the consequences of a Russian night missile that hit a 4-apartment residential building in Vilniansk, Zaporiyia region. The bodies of seven dead people were removed from the rubble,» he has indicated.
Shortly afterwards, the Russian-installed authorities in the region have accused the Ukrainian Armed Forces of being behind the attack. Vladimir Rogov, the spokesman of the main council of the Russian military-civil administration, said that the attack was carried out in the locality of Mikhailovka.
Russia annexed this region in September, together with Kherson, Donetsk and Lugansk, in the middle of the invasion launched on February 24 on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian forces have made advances in recent weeks in some of them, partially occupied by Russian troops.
