20 people in hospital and over 60 injured after Russian strike on Kryvyi Rih apartment block
The reported number of people injured in the strike on an apartment block in Kryvyi Rih keeps rising. The latest figure reported in Ukraine by Suspilne is 64 injured.
The regional governor, Serhiy Lysak, has stated that the injured include “two boys and three girls, aged from four to 17 years old”.
Suspilne adds in its report: “Most of the wounded will be treated at home. More than 20 remain in hospitals.”
Four people have been reported dead in the attack.
Key events
Interfax in Russia reports that parliament in Moldova has extending the national state of emergency for a further 60 days.
Moldova, which borders Ukraine, first declared the state of emergency on 24 February 2022 in response to the full-scale Russian invasion of its neighbour. It has expressed concerns about the possibility of a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and the impact on gas supplies which might affect the country.
The breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, which has Russian troops stationed in it, is sandwiched between Ukraine and Moldovan-controlled territory. Early in the war a string of explosions hit government buildings in Transistria, prompting fears Moldova could be dragged into the conflict.
20 people in hospital and over 60 injured after Russian strike on Kryvyi Rih apartment block
The reported number of people injured in the strike on an apartment block in Kryvyi Rih keeps rising. The latest figure reported in Ukraine by Suspilne is 64 injured.
The regional governor, Serhiy Lysak, has stated that the injured include “two boys and three girls, aged from four to 17 years old”.
Suspilne adds in its report: “Most of the wounded will be treated at home. More than 20 remain in hospitals.”
Four people have been reported dead in the attack.
Russian airstrikes destroyed an estimated 180,000 metric tonnes of grain crops in the space of nine days this month, the Ukrainian foreign ministry said on Monday, Reuters reports.
Russia has conducted airstrikes on Ukrainian port infrastructure – notably at Odesa – several times after withdrawing from the Black Sea grain deal.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, said Russia lost 87 units of equipment last week, including 33 strongholds, 26 armored combat vehicles and 15 tanks.
These claims have not been independently verified.
The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has called the latest attack on a residential block of flats in Kryvyi Rih another example of the “genocidal everyday reality” for people in Ukraine.
In a tweet, he added:
International law will never work if the aggressor does not see a real power behind it. The power begins with closing the Ukrainian skies with missile defense and air defense systems.
This is already a kind of genocidal everyday reality… Kryvyi Rih. A Russian missile destroys another residential building. 53 injured. 4 killed. Among them are a 45-year-old woman and a 10-year-old daughter.
International law will never work if the aggressor does not see a… pic.twitter.com/77ol0txWBu
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) July 31, 2023
Here are some more images being sent over the news wires from Kryvyi Rih. At least four people have been killed and more than 53 injured after Russian missiles struck the Ukrainian city.
Moscow has intensified strikes on Ukrainian military infrastructure in response to attacks on Russian-controlled territory, the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said on Monday.
Shoigu said:
Against the background of the failure of the so-called ‘counteroffensive’, Kyiv … has focused on carrying out terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure.
The intensity of our strikes against Ukrainian military facilities … has been considerably increased.
Shoigu said the army had taken “additional measures to increase protection against attacks from the air and the sea”, AFP reports.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the minister of internal affairs of Ukraine, tweeted a video that showed the moment part of the building in Kryvyi Rih that was hit by a Russian missile today crumbled.
According to the regional military administration, at least four people died in the attack, including a 10-year-old child, and at least 53 people were injured.
Part of the building in Kryvyi Rih that was hit by a Russian missile today, fell down even more. The moment was captured on video.
As of now, four people have been confirmed dead, including a 10 year old child.
53 people injured – regional military administration. pic.twitter.com/TN8sI46aNF— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 31, 2023
The Kremlin on Monday described a recent drone attack on Moscow as an “act of desperation” by Ukraine after setbacks on the battlefield.
AFP reports that Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said it has been “very difficult” for Ukrainian forces on the frontline since it launched its counteroffensive in June. He added:
It is obvious that the counteroffensive is not a success.
In an act of desperation, the regime in Kyiv is turning to such terrorist attacks.
All possible measures have been taken to defend civil infrastructure (against Ukrainian strikes).
Ukrainian forces have recaptured nearly 15 sq km (5.8 sq miles) of land from Russian troops in the east and south over the past week during their counteroffensive, a senior defence official said on Monday.
Kyiv’s forces have now retaken 204.7 sq km in the south since they launched a major push back against Russian forces early last month, deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar said on Telegram.
According to Reuters, Maliar said Kyiv’s troops had retaken 2 sq km in the past week on the Bakhmut front, bringing the total territory recaptured there to 37 sq km since the counteroffensive began.
In the south, where Ukrainian forces are trying to advance towards the cities of Berdiansk and Melitopol, she said that Kyiv’s troops had recaptured 12.6 sq km in the last week.
Russian troops tried to attack on two northern fronts near Kupiansk and Lyman, but failed to break through, she said.
“Our defence forces are powerfully holding back enemy troops,” she added.
The Kremlin said on Monday that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is “not working out as planned” and that Nato resources supplied to Kyiv had been “wasted”.
These claims have not been independently verified.
Summary of the day so far …
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At least four people, including a 10-year-old child, have been killed and more than 40 people injured when Russia struck a high-rise apartment in Kryvyi Rih. Authorities said people were trapped under rubble. Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office, called for revenge, saying: “Every day, Ukrainian cities are under fire from Russian terrorists. Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kharkiv. This is only for the last few days.” He said targeting civilians was a sign of “the despair and defeat of the Russian Federation at the front”.
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Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, said “This is how the week begins in a Ukrainian city that just wants a quiet, normal life. Russia wants to take peace and life away”, and offered condolences to the victims and their families. The city is the home town of both Zelenska and her husband.
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Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed acting governor of occupied Donetsk, has claimed that at least two people have been killed and at least six injured after a Ukrainian strike hit a bus in the city which had been capital of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic since 2014, and which Russia claimed to have annexed last year.
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Three Ukrainian drones that were shot down over Moscow damaged a high-rise building containing government offices and briefly shut an international airport, according to reports. Moscow mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said nobody was hurt and there was only minor damage to the facade of two office buildings in the Moscow City business district early on Sunday. Russia’s state news agency Tass reported a security guard had been injured. One of the damaged buildings – several kilometres from the Kremlin – was home to three Russian government ministries as well as residential apartments, according to Russian media, in the third such attack on the capital region in a week.
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The Kremlin said on Monday that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was “not working out as planned” and that Nato resources supplied to Kyiv had been “wasted”. On a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said separately that Russia would take additional measures to defend against Ukrainian drone strikes.
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“War is returning to the territory of Russia,” Zelenskiy warned after the drones were downed over Moscow. The Ukrainian president said that was “an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process” and that Russia’s symbolic centres and military bases would be targeted.
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Suspilne reports that as a result of morning shelling in Kherson, a 60-year-old employee of a utility company was killed, and four more people were injured. The Russian army also helled Kramatorsk with rockets at night, and an industrial zone was hit. There were no casualties or injuries reorted.
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Alexey Kulemzin, the Russian-imposed mayor of the occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, has reported that “facades, balconies, roofing and glazing” have been damaged in Kuibyshevskyi district in the city by overnight shelling.
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Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to have said in a voice message published on Monday that his Wagner group was not currently recruiting fighters but was likely to do so in future. Prigozhin said in the voice message that “unfortunately” some of his fighters had moved to other “power structures”, but he said they were looking to return. “As long as we don’t experience a shortage in personnel, we don’t plan to carry out a new recruitment,” Prigozhin said. “However, we will be extremely grateful to you if you keep in touch with us, and as soon as the Motherland needs to create a new group that will be able to protect the interests of our country, we will certainly start recruiting.”
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Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would be “forced” to use a nuclear weapon if Kyiv’s counteroffensive was a success and its forces “tore off a part of our land”. Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s security council, said that in that situation “there would simply be no other option”.
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Saudi Arabia will host a Ukrainian-organised peace summit in early August seeking a way to start negotiations over the war, the Associated Press has reported, citing Saudi officials. One, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia was not invited to the talks in Jeddah. The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, later confirmed the talks would be held in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has not acknowledged the summit nor responded to a request for comment. The Kremlin said on Monday it needed to find out the purpose of upcoming talks.