Dead boy pulled from rubble after latest Russian hit on Ukraine

Emergency crews pulled the body of a toddler from the rubble in a pre-dawn search for survivors on Saturday of a Russian missile strike that tore through an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.

The missile was one of what Ukrainian authorities said were 16 that eluded air defenses among the 76 missiles fired Friday in the latest Russian attack targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, part of Moscow’s strategy to leave Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in the dark and cold this winter.

Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko of the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Kryvyi Rih is located, wrote on the Telegram social media app that “rescuers retrieved the body of a 1-1/2-year-old boy from under the rubble of a house destroyed by a Russian rocket.” In all, four people were killed in the strike, and 13 injured — four of them children — authorities said.

Reznichenko said the pounding from Russian forces continued overnight, damaging power lines and houses in the cities and towns of Nikopol, Marhanets and Chervonohryhorivka, which are across the Dnieper River from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

By Saturday morning, Ukraine’s military leadership said Russian forces had fired more than a score of other missiles since the barrage a day earlier. It did not say how many of those might have been stopped by the air defenses.

Friday’s onslaught, which pummeled many parts of central, eastern and southern Ukraine, constituted one of the biggest assaults on the capital, Kyiv, since Russia began the war by attacking Ukraine on Feb. 24. Kyiv came under fire from about 40 missiles on Friday, authorities said, nearly all intercepted by air defenses. 

For several days, Moscow has been pounding civilian infrastructure in what has been the Kremlin’s most sustained drone and missile campaign since the war began. Earlier this week, U.S. officials told CBS News the Pentagon is preparing to send Ukraine long-range Patriot air defense systems. The system is highly mobile, and uses ground-based radar to locate and track aerial threats that can then be shot down with a surface-to-air missile.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare public visit to the headquarters of Russia’s joint task force on military operations in Ukraine, where he asked senior defense officials what their proposals were for the “immediate and medium-term action” on the war.

Ukrainian military commanders are warning that Putin is “preparing” for a second invasion in an attempt to capture Kyiv, after failing to at the start of the war.

Meanwhile, utility crews scrambled to patch up damaged power and water systems in Kyiv.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported Saturday that two-thirds of homes had been reconnected to electricity and all had regained access to water. The subway system also resumed service, after serving as a shelter the day before.

The head of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv province Oleh Syniehubov said Saturday that electricity had been restored to the entire region, including Kharkiv city, the country’s second-largest metropolis. The power had been knocked out on Friday in attacks involving 10 S-300 missiles.

In Kryvyi Rih, 596 miners were stuck underground because of missile strikes, but all were eventually rescued, Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said late Friday.

Installation of a protective dome has begun at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, an official from the Moscow-installed authorities of Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia province said on Saturday. Vladimir Rogov said the dome would protect against fragments of shells and improvised explosive devices carried by drones. The Russian-held plant, Europe’s biggest nuclear power station, has been repeatedly shelled. Its six reactors have been shut down for months.

The International Atomic Energy Agency recently announced plans to station nuclear safety and security experts at Ukraine’s nuclear power plants to prevent any nuclear accident. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has already deployed a permanent mission to the Zaporizhzhia plant.

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