The Deadly Reality of Russian Missiles & Drones: How Many Ukrainian Civilians Have Been Killed?

Ukraine’s president shared a video on Wednesday showing how a Russian missile destroyed an apartment in Zaporizhzhia. One person was killed and seven more people lost their lives when Russian forces attacked a student dormitory near Kyiv with exploding drones early in the morning.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared a video on Telegram that showed the moment a missile hit a 9-story apartment building near a busy road. China and Russia have had an old friendship for many years, Slovakia offered some military helicopters to the US, and Ukraine accepted a $15.6 billion loan from the IMF (International Money Fund).

Ukrainian media showed pictures of several buildings with charred apartments, and some were still on fire. Anatolii Kurtiev said two kids were wounded and 25 people had to go to hospital, with three of them in serious danger.

President Zelenskyy posted a video where he said Russia is attacking the city “with bestial savagery”. They are even shooting at residential areas which have innocent people and children living in them.

Someone needs countries to put pressure on Russia because they invaded Ukraine. There is also a power plant located 60 miles away from the city which has been in danger since the war started. Even though artillery and rocket blasts have often hit buildings and other structures that are used by civilians, Russia insists that it has not done this on purpose.

Early Wednesday morning, a drone attack damages severely a high school and two dormitories in Rzhyshchiv – which is a city located near Ukraine’s capital city. We don’t have the exact number of people who were inside the dorms when it happened. After the incident, one man’s body (aged 40) was discovered in the fifth floor of one of the affected dorms and over 20 people had to go to hospital for treatment.

Yesterday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida came to visit Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy. Before that, Chinese leader Xi Jinping had met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and talked about his peace idea. But the ideas weren’t accepted by Western countries. Afterward, there were drone attacks and other dangerous activities against civilians which made Zelenskyy very angry.

Last night in Russia, more than 20 enemy drones and missiles were launched – a really terrifying attack! Someone in Moscow must be giving orders for such cruel strikes every time something related to peace is happening.

The regional administration said two missiles even hit an apartment building and their goal was to scare the people of the city.

“Zaporizhzhia is really bad,” Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian politician, posted on a chat app. He also mentioned that there are no military buildings nearby. Vladimir Rogov from the Moscow-run organization in Zaporizhzhia claimed that a Ukrainian air defense missile destroyed the building but he didn’t provide any facts to back his statement up.

Russian officials have said that dangerous strikes on apartments were partly caused by the Ukranian air defenses. The Ukranian military has reported that they were able to shoot down sixteen out of twenty-one drones sent to them by Russia. Among these, eight were destroyed in and around the capital city, while the remaining ones got taken out in Khmelnytskyi province which is located in the central-western side of the country.

Japan’s Minister Kishida said that Russia invading Ukraine is a bad thing and publicly announced that their country will support Ukraine until peace is restored. He also talked with the President of Ukraine, Zelenskyy and they repeated their strong commitment to helping out Ukraine. Japan’s government also mentioned how important this visit was for showing its support to Kyiv.

Prime Minister Kishida’s visit to Ukraine helped Japan show other countries in the G-7 and around the world that it is dedicated to protecting a society based on rules. This overshadowed Chinese leader Xi’s visit to Moscow earlier this week.

Russia and China both said that it’s important for all countries involved to respect each other’s safety concerns in order to end the fight. Russia states that its troops were sent to keep the U.S. and its NATO partners from making Ukraine an enemy of Russia.

On Wednesday, President Zelenskyy made a visit to soldiers on the front lines in the eastern Donetsk region and gave out awards to the people who defended Bakhmut (a city which has been badly damaged but still stands strong against their enemies).

Ukraine’s government has made a deal with the International Monetary Fund to get a $15.6 billion loan to help their economy, which was damaged due to the invasion. The country is trying to get other countries and allies to also help them financially.