By Olena Harmash and Max Hunder
KYIV (Reuters) – A Russian missile hit a clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, killing at least two people and injuring 23 in an attack President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called a crime against humanity.
Video footage showed a devastated building with smoke billowing and rescue workers watching. Much of the upper floor of what appeared to be a three-story building had been badly damaged. A covered corpse lay on the road nearby.
“Another (Russian) missile attack, another crime against humanity,” Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter, describing the damage to a psychological clinic and a veterinary clinic in Dnipro.
“Only an evil state can fight against the clinics. There can be no military purpose in this. This is pure Russian terror.”
Regional Governor Serhiy Lysak said a 69-year-old man had been killed, adding: “He was just passing by when the Russian terrorists’ rocket hit the town.”
The governor said the body of another man had been pulled from the rubble and 21 of the 23 injured had been taken to hospital. Three were seriously injured, he said.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has labeled it a serious war crime under the Geneva Conventions, which define how soldiers and civilians should be treated in times of war.
Russia did not immediately comment on events in Dnipro, a major city that has come under frequent fire since Moscow began its full-scale invasion 15 months ago.
Moscow has dismissed allegations that its soldiers committed war crimes and denies deliberately targeting civilians, although its airstrikes have often hit civilian infrastructure, including residential buildings and medical facilities.
NIGHT ATTACKS
Moscow said earlier Friday that Ukraine struck two regions in southern Russia with a rocket and a drone, but the missile was shot down by its air defenses.
Ukraine said its air defenses shot down 10 missiles and more than 20 drones launched by Russia in nighttime attacks on Dnipro, the capital Kyiv and eastern regions.
Zelenskiy’s office said a fire broke out on the outskirts of the northeastern city of Kharkiv after an oil depot was hit twice, and pumping equipment from petroleum products had been damaged.
After months of attacks on energy infrastructure, Russia has redirected its missile strikes to try to disrupt preparations for a Ukrainian counterattack, a senior military intelligence official said last week. The attacks increasingly targeted military installations and supplies, he said.