Russian forces attacked the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia with five glide bombs on Saturday morning, killing at least 15 people including three children, according to Ukrainian officials. At least 16 others were injured, with additional people believed trapped under rubble.
The strikes hit residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, a regional centre with over 700,000 residents located less than 16 kilometers from the front line. Acting Mayor Regina Kharchenko told Ukrainian television that ground-floor impacts caused upper floors to collapse. Over 80 workers conducted search and rescue operations throughout the day, pausing periodically to listen for survivors.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky linked the attack to a Trump administration deal announced Friday easing US sanctions on Moscow to import Russian diesel. Zelensky stated the attacks represented Russia's "thanks" for the policy shift and claimed the action demonstrated Russia interpreted "any easing of pressure to mean they can keep fighting." He said 13 additional regions came under attack overnight.
Zelensky criticized the diesel agreement as a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts quoted in the source material viewed the deal as an attempt by the US president to address domestic fuel price concerns ahead of midterm elections.
The attack followed other recent civilian casualties. On Thursday, at least 33 people died in a Russian glide bomb attack on two civilian buses in Kramatorsk in Donetsk. On Wednesday, a Russian missile killed 22 people, including five children, when it struck an apartment block in Pryluky east of Kyiv.
The UN documented a 55 percent jump in civilian casualties across Ukraine in the first eight months of this year. Russia has escalated strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as winter approaches, a tactic it has employed in previous years. Kyiv accuses Moscow of deliberately targeting civilians, a charge Russia denies.
Ukraine has increasingly struck Russian infrastructure deep inside Russia, including oil refineries and Yandex data centres, to curtail revenue streams for Moscow's war effort.