Russian attack on Ukrainian clinic kills two and wounds 30, Kyiv says

Rescuers work at the site of a clinic heavily destroyed by a Russian missile strike in Dnipro, Ukraine, May 26, 2023. (Reuters)

KYIV–A Russian missile hit a clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, killing two people and wounding 30 in an attack that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called a crime against humanity.

Video footage showed a devastated building with smoke pouring out of it and rescue workers looking on. Much of the upper floor of what appeared to be a three-story building had been badly damaged. A covered corpse lay in the road nearby.

“Another (Russian) missile attack, another crime against humanity,” Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter.

He said a psychological clinic and a veterinary clinic had been hit, and added: “Only an evil state can fight against clinics. There can be no military purpose in this. It is pure Russian terror.”

Regional governor Serhiy Lysak said a 69-year-old man had been killed as he passed the clinic and another man’s body had been pulled from the rubble.

He said 30 people had been wounded, including two children, and contact had not yet been made with three people thought to have been in the building when it was hit.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry called the attack a serious war crime under the Geneva Conventions, which set out how soldiers and civilians should be treated in war.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had carried out an overnight strike on Ukrainian ammunition depots.

“The target of the strike has been achieved. All designated facilities were hit,” the RIA news agency quoted it as saying.

Moscow has dismissed allegations that its soldiers have committed war crimes and denies deliberately targeting civilians although it has bombarded cities across Ukraine since invading 15 months ago.

Overnight attacks

Moscow said earlier on Friday Ukraine had struck two regions in southern Russia with a rocket and a drone, but the missile was shot down.

Ukraine said it had shot down 10 missiles and more than 20 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks on Dnipro, Kyiv and eastern regions.

Zelenskiy’s office said a fire had broken out on the outskirts of the northeastern city of Kharkiv after an oil depot was hit twice, and that equipment for pumping oil products had been damaged.

After months of attacks on energy infrastructure, Russia has shifted the focus of its missile strikes to try to disrupt preparations for a Ukrainian counterattack, a senior military intelligence official said last week. Attacks were increasingly targeting military facilities and supplies, he said.

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