Residents trapped under rubble of their home as Russian missiles blast Zaporizhzhia

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Seven Russian missiles have struck a residential block in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing at least one woman and injuring several others, a local official has said.

Residents were left trapped in the rubble of their homes of the five-story building after the strikes rained down in the city close to Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant on Thursday.

Governor Oleksandr Starukh told Ukrainian television that one woman was killed in shelling overnight, and another who had been reported dead had survived.

The victims of the attack include a three-year-old girl who was taken to hospital for treatement, the governor wrote on Telegram.

He said on Thursday morning: “The rescue operation is still ongoing. The number of victims may vary. The number of victims could have been much higher, but thanks to the timely and professional actions of the Zaporizhzhia state emergency service, 21 victims were already saved.”

A second attack in Zaporizhzhia happened outside a car wash and garage, but no casualties were reported.

The deputy head of the Ukraine president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said 10 people had been killed in the latest Russian attacks in the Dnipro, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

The attack came hours after Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said the country’s forces have retaken more settlements in Kherson, one of the partially Russian-occupied southern regions that Moscow claims to have annexed in illegal referendums.

With Russian forces retreating from front lines in the south and east, the Ukrainian president said Novovoskresenske, Novohryhorivka and Petropavlivka to the northeast of Kherson city had been “liberated”.

Phillips P. O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, predicted more Russian failures in Kherson, noting that it’s “hard to stabilise a line when your logistics are stretched, your troops are exhausted and your opponent is much, much smarter”.

Ukrainian soldiers reclaiming their territory in Lyman are finding a scene of destruction with bombed cars and corpses in the logistics and rail hub of the besieged city.

On Wednesday, the bodies of two Russian soldiers were still lying in trees, close to the blasted hulks of cars and a van.

Locals have said that they are having to live with the stench of dead Russian troops.

At least 15 bodies of Russian soldiers were lying in her street, the 73-year-old said. “Nobody removes them. It’s the fifth day they are lying there. And we have the smell,” she said.