By Anastasiia Malenko and Max Hunder
KYIV (Reuters) -A Russian missile struck a hotel in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih late on Wednesday, killing four people and injuring 32, and rescuers were still searching on Thursday morning for anyone trapped in the rubble, officials said.
A group of humanitarian organization volunteers from Ukraine, the U.S. and Britain had checked into the hotel just before the strike but survived after taking shelter quickly, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskiy’s home town, has been a frequent target since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
“Unfortunately, four people were killed in the attack,” the president wrote on Telegram. “We must not pause in putting pressure on Russia to stop this war and terror against life.”
Ukraine’s Emergency Services said 19 people had been rescued from the site of the hotel.
They posted pictures of crews making their way through the rubble outside the floodlit five-storey building and clambering up and down ladders.
Other pictures posted by the regional governor showed the hotel on Thursday no longer in flames but with its top floor destroyed and the rest of the building wrecked. He said two children were among the wounded.
ENERGY ATTACKS
Separately, Ukraine’s military said Russian forces in total had launched two ballistic missiles – including the one that struck Kryvyi Rih – and 112 drones at Ukraine overnight.
In the northeastern city of Sumy, Russian drones struck a postal depot and started a large fire, killing one person and burning down the facility along with more than 2,500 parcels.
Photos and videos posted by Nova Poshta, the depot’s owner, showed the ruined shell of a warehouse strewn with rubble and charred packages.
Some drones struck energy infrastructure in the southern region of Odesa, injuring two people, its governor said.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said the Odesa region attack had damaged its fifth facility in two weeks.
“Russia continues its energy terror of Odesa region,” DTEK said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said about 10,000 households in the Odesa region were currently without power, and that work was being conducted round the clock to restore the supply.
Moscow has waged a rolling campaign of strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities throughout the war, causing frequent blackouts across the country.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski, Oleksandr Kozhukhar, Anastasiia Malenko, writing by Max Hunder; Editing by Tom Balmforth, Hugh Lawson and Gareth Jones)
