JUST IN: Russian strikes hit Ukrainian apartment buildings, kills three, injure 25

At least three people were killed and 25 injured after a Russian air attack on a residential neighbourhood in the industrial city of Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine’s south, regional authorities said early on Tuesday.
Nineteen people have been hospitalised, Serhiy Lysak, the military governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram.

He said a “massive missile attack” hit Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town.

Air defences were able to repel three cruise missiles, but others hit civilian sites.

Earlier, the head of the local military administration Oleksandr Vilkul, also reported a strike on a five-story building and wrote that there were probably still people under the rubble.

Air raid sirens sounded in many other Ukrainian regions. Russian forces also fired a barrage of cruise missiles on the capital Kiev, according to local authorities.

The city’s air defences intercepted all incoming missiles, according to Ukrainian officials.

There were also reports of drone attacks on the eastern city of Kharkiv.

Russia is now receiving larger consignments of Iranian “kamikaze” drones, according to British intelligence.

The drones are likely being delivered by ship, not a plane, across the Caspian Sea, the British Ministry of Defence said.

“By supplying these weapons, Iran continues to breach UN Security Council Resolution 2231,” the ministry’s latest update said.

Moscow is also pressing ahead on the domestic production of drones, “almost certainly” with Iranian assistance, the ministry said.

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, give Russia a “relatively cheap long-range strike capability at a time when it has expended a large proportion of its cruise missile stocks in Ukraine.”

The Caspian Sea has become a more important route of transport for Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion.

“It allows Russia to access Asian markets – including arms transfers – in ways it hopes are less vulnerable to international sanctions,” the update said.

The British Ministry of Defence has been publishing daily bulletins on the course of the war since the invasion began in February 2022, to keep allies up to date and counter disinformation.

Moscow accuses London of a disinformation campaign.

(dpa/NAN)