KYIV (Reuters) – A Russian missile struck a hotel in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih late on Wednesday, killing four people and injuring 31, with rescuers still searching on Thursday morning for anyone trapped in the rubble, officials said.
A group of humanitarian organization volunteers from Ukraine, the U.S. and Britain had checked into the hotel just before the strike but survived after taking shelter quickly, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
“Unfortunately, four people were killed in the attack,” he wrote on Telegram. “We must not pause in putting pressure on Russia to stop this war and terror against life.”
Fourteen of the 31 injured in the strike were in a serious condition, said Serhiy Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk region.
Ukraine’s Emergency Services, also posting on Telegram, said 19 people had been rescued from the site of the hotel.
They posted pictures of crews making their way through the rubble outside the floodlit five-storey building and clambering up and down ladders.
Smoke billowed from the top of the hotel and nearly all its windows appeared to have been blown out. A crane was deployed to reach upper levels.
In addition to the hotel, 14 apartment buildings, a post office and 12 shops were also damaged, the governor said.
The Ukrainian military said Russian forces launched two ballistic missiles and 112 drones at Ukraine overnight. Drones also struck energy infrastructure in the southern region of Odesa, injuring two people, the governor said.
In the northeastern city of Sumy, a drone attack killed one person and damaged a private enterprise’s storage facility, according to the local prosecutors.
Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskiy’s home town, has been a frequent target since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski, Oleksandr Kozhukhar, Anastasiia Malenko; Editing by Stephen Coates, Tom Balmforth and Hugh Lawson)
