???? Live: Russia launches deadly air strike on Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, local governor says

Issued on: 13/06/2023 – 06:50

6:07am: Three killed by missile strike in Kryvyi Rih, official says

 At least three people were killed and 25 injured in Russia’s overnight missile strikes on Kryvyi Rih that destroyed a five-storey residential building, Serhiy Lisak, the governor of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region said on Tuesday.

“There are still people under the rubble,” Lisak wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Four people were injured at another location in the city, he added.

5:21am: Russia launches ‘massive missile’ attack on Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, local governor says

Russia launched a “massive missile” attack overnight on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, killing and wounding people and damaging civilian infrastructure, Ukrainian  officials said early on Tuesday.

“There are dead and wounded,” Serhiy Lisak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region where Kryvyi Rih is located, said on the Telegram messaging app.

“A massive missile attack on Kryvyi Rih.”

Russian air strikes hit several civilian buildings in the city, including a five-storey building, the mayor of Kryvyi Rih, Oleksandr Vilkul, said earlier.

“Likely, there are people under the rubble,” Vilkul said on Telegram.

3:45am: Russia’s air attack on Kyiv region repelled, say Ukraine officials

Russia’s air attack in the Kyiv region was repelled, with Ukraine’ air defence systems destroying all missiles heading toward the capital, military officials said early on Tuesday.

“No information on casualties or damage has yet been received,” Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration said on the Telegram messaging app.

There were also reports of strikes on the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine and on the city of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine.

11:53pm: IAEA chief to arrive in Kyiv on Tuesday

The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, will arrive in Kyiv on Tuesday to meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky before heading to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Since the conflict’s start IAEA chief Grossi has warned of the potential for a nuclear accident at the plant, which he has previously visited twice and where a permanent IAEA team is based.

Sitting on the Dnipro river, the Russian-held Kakhovka dam, which was breached last week in an incident blamed by Kyiv on Moscow, forms a reservoir that provides the cooling water for the Russian-occupied plant.

The IAEA has warned that the Kakhovka dam disaster which claimed at least 10 lives and has left dozens missing further “(complicated) an already precarious nuclear safety and security situation at the” plant.

Key developments from Monday, June 12:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that fighting in a long-awaited offensive against Russian forces was “tough” but claimed Kyiv was “moving forward.” Ukraine on Monday said it had wrested seven villages in eastern and southern Ukraine from Russian forces since the weekend. The claims could not be independently verified.

NATO began the largest air force deployment exercise in Europe in the alliance’s history in a display of unity toward partners and potential threats such as Russia. Presenting the plans last week, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz of the German Luftwaffe said that while NATO would defend “every centimetre” of its territory, the exercise would not “send any flights, for example, in the direction of Kaliningrad,” the Russian enclave bordering alliance member states Poland and Lithuania. “We are a defensive alliance and that is how this exercise is planned,” he said.

Read yesterday’s liveblog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)