By Vladyslav Smilianets
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (Reuters) – A Russian missile attack killed two people and blew out apartment windows in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday, Anatoliy Kurtiev, secretary of the city council, said.
“An enemy missile hit an open area,” Kurtiev said on Telegram. “Unfortunately a man and a woman died. Another woman was injured.”
Rescue crews were seen carrying the victims away in body bags in a wooded area beside a railway line a few hundred meters from a station in the city center. Men in uniforms examined pieces of shrapnel and stood beside a crater in the earth several meters wide.
“The blast wave knocked out windows in high-rise buildings and damaged the building of an educational institution and a supermarket,” Kurtiev said, adding that psychologists and other services were providing support on the ground.
At one apartment building, a 65-year-old woman who gave her name as Olena, sat behind the shattered window of a parking office booth and crossed herself as she described how she survived the impact uninjured.
“I was sitting here like this,” she said, gesticulating as she recalled the moment of the impact. “It was just so unexpected,” she said. “All the glass went flying.”
Kurtiev said the blast wave broke windows in 13 high-rise buildings and an educational institution.
(Reporting by Vladyslav Smilianets in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine; Editing by Alistair Bell)
