Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan 15 (AFP\/APP): Ukraine said Sunday that the death toll had risen to 21 after a Russian missile slammed into a tower block in the city of Dnipro during a massive wave of strikes causing power outages and blackouts across the war-torn country.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian officials said more than 40 people were still missing after the Dnpiro strike Saturday, which came as Ukraine celebrated the Old New Year, a popular holiday, and as Britain became the first Western country to offer Kyiv the heavy tanks it has long sought.<\/p>\n
At least 21 people were killed and 73 others wounded in Saturday’s attack on the Dnipro tower block, Ukraine’s regional council head Mykola Lukashuk said.<\/p>\n
A 15-year-old girl was among the dead, officials said, after dozens of people were pulled from the rubble.<\/p>\n
“Rescue operations continue. The fate of more than 40 people remains unknown,” regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said Sunday.<\/p>\n
Rescuers battled through the night in a bid to free a woman trapped under the rubble after hearing her voice, the state emergency service said.<\/p>\n
The strike destroyed dozens of flats in the Dnipro apartment block leaving hundreds of people homeless, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official at the presidency.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian army said the block was hit by an X-22 Russian missile that it lacked the capacity to shoot down.<\/p>\n
– British tanks –<\/p>\n
“Only anti-aircraft missile systems, which in the future may be provided to Ukraine by Western partners… are capable of intercepting these air targets,” it said.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday pleaded for more Western military weapons, saying that Russian “terror” could be stopped only on the battlefield.<\/p>\n
“What is needed for this? Those weapons that are in the warehouses of our partners,” Zelensky said.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to provide Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, the first Western country to supply the heavy tanks Kyiv has been demanding.<\/p>\n
The tanks would arrive in Ukraine in the coming weeks, Downing Street said, adding that Britain would also train the Ukrainian Armed Forces on how to use them.<\/p>\n
Russia’s embassy in Britain warned that “bringing tanks to the conflict zone, far from drawing the hostilities to a close, will only serve to intensify combat operations, generating more casualties, including among the civilian population”.<\/p>\n
Moldova, Ukraine’s southwestern neighbour, said it had found Russian missile debris on its territory after Saturday’s strikes.<\/p>\n
“Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine directly impacts Moldova again,” President Maia Sandu tweeted, posting photographs of the wreckage.
\n“We strongly condemn today’s intensified attacks.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan 15 (AFP\/APP): Ukraine said Sunday that the death toll had risen to 21 after a Russian missile slammed into a tower block in the city of Dnipro during a massive wave of strikes causing power outages and blackouts across the war-torn country. […]<\/p>\n
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