(Reuters) -Russian strikes on a penal colony in the frontline region of Zaporizhzhia in southwestern Ukraine overnight killed 16 people and injured at least 35, regional Ukrainian military and Zaporizhzhia’s governor said on Tuesday
Zaporizhzhia governor Ivan Fedorov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said that the correctional facility’s buildings were destroyed, and nearby private homes were also damaged.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, condemned the strikes as “another war crime” committed by Russia.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s regime, which also issues threats against the United States through some of its mouthpieces, must face economic and military blows that strip it of the capacity to wage war,” Yermak said on X.
Moscow forces have regularly attacked Zaporizhzhia, using drones, missiles and aerial bombs, since the start of the war that Russia started with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Russia unilaterally declared early in the war its annexation of parts of Zaporizhzhia and areas in and around three other Ukrainian regions. Kyiv and its Western allies called the move an illegal land grab.
Fedorov said that Russian forces launched eight strikes on the Zaporizhzhia district, reportedly using high-explosive aerial bombs.
Reuters could not independently verify Fedorov’s report. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes, but thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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