\n A Russian ballistic missile strike on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's home city of Kryvyi Rig killed 18 people on Friday, among them nine children, authorities said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The missile struck a residential area near a children's playground and wounded more than two dozen others, according to the head of the city's military administration.\n<\/p>\n
\n Unverified videos on social media appeared to show bodies lying on a street, while another showed a plume of smoke rising into the evening sky.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"18... that is how many people were killed by the Russians when they launched a missile at Kryvyi Rig. Among them were nine children,\" Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Sergiy Lysak said on Telegram.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said 61 people were injured in the attack, among them 12 children.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This is the kind of pain you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy,\" Lysak added.\n<\/p>\n
\n Russia's Ministry of Defence said it \"delivered a precision strike with a high-explosive missile at a restaurant\" in the city \"where commanders of formations and Western instructors were meeting\".\n<\/p>\n
\n In separate drone attack on Kryvyi Rig, Lysak said one additional person was killed and three others injured.\n<\/p>\n
\n US President Donald Trump has been pushing for a speedy end to the more than three-year war since taking office, but his administration has failed to broker a ceasefire despite talks with both sides.\n<\/p>\n
\n Zelensky said the attack showed Russia had no interest in stopping its full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"There is only one reason why this continues -- Russia does not want a ceasefire and we see it. The whole world sees it,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Ukrainian leader was born in Kryvyi Rig, an industrial city which had a pre-war population of around 600,000 people.\n<\/p>\n
\n Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for an unconditional and full ceasefire in March, while the Kremlin has made a US-proposed truce in the Black Sea dependent on the West lifting certain sanctions.\n<\/p>\n
\n US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier on Friday that Trump was not \"going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations\" with Russia over the invasion.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We will know soon enough, in a matter of weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'War crime' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Kryvyi Rig, in Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region, is about 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the front line, and has regularly been targeted by Russian drones and missiles.\n<\/p>\n
\n Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city's military administration, said the missile landed near a children's playground.\n<\/p>\n
\n Five apartment buildings were damaged, interior minister Igor Klymenko said.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said police had blocked off the area to maintain order.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The police are documenting the consequences of Russia's war crime and accepting statements from the victims,\" Klymenko added.\n<\/p>\n
\n Social media video from the scene showed a car in flames, while people could be heard shouting.\n<\/p>\n
\n Andriy Kovalenko, a Ukrainian official tasked with countering disinformation, described the missile involved in the attack as an \"Iskander\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The Iskander is a Russian ballistic missile system that can have a range of up to 500 kilometres (311 miles).\n<\/p>\n
\n \"This is a deliberate strike to kill a large number of people,\" Kovalenko said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Zelensky accused Russia of regarding diplomacy as an \"empty word\" in his evening address.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"A ceasefire could have been reached by now and it is Putin who rejects it,\" he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Russian ballistic missile strike on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's home city of Kryvyi Rig killed 18 people on Friday, among them nine children, authorities said. The missile struck a residential area near a children's playground and wounded more than two dozen others, according to the head of the city's military administration. Unverified videos on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-143969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n