Russian attacks on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday injured more than 50 people, including several children, damaged residential buildings and killed a teenager and an emergency worker, local authorities said.

One of the s

• İstatistik

trikes hit a multi-story residential building in the city's Kosmichnyi district, damaging apartments on three floors and triggering fires on the second and third floors, Ivan Fedorov, co-chair of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast Defense Council, said.

Rescuers freed 17 people who had been trapped inside their apartments following the strike, according to Ukraine's State Emergency Service. Fires also broke out in apartments and a nearby car, while another five-story residential building sustained damage to its apartments and facade.

The State Emergency Service said its personnel were continuing search and rescue operations at the affected sites.

Later on Friday, local authorities reported that a rescue worker from the Cobra emergency service had been killed when a concrete slab fell on him as he cleared debris from a building damaged in the Russian attack.

The attacks also claimed civilian lives at other locations across the city. At around 6:30 a.m. local time, Russian forces launched two strikes on a residential neighborhood, killing a 17-year-old boy and injuring four other people.

Rescuers pulled four people, including a 10-year-old child, from the rubble. The survivors were identified as a 35-year-old woman, a 10-year-old boy, a 34-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman, according to regional officials.

A separate strike on an industrial facility in the Kosmichnyi district also killed a man and triggered a fire, local media reported.

Emergency service psychologists provided assistance to 31 residents, including two children, as rescue and recovery operations continued.

The latest attacks came amid an intensification of Russian military pressure in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, where Russian forces have been seeking to disrupt Ukrainian logistics and potentially prepare the ground for further advances toward the city of Dnipro.

Yevhen Lasiichuk, commander of Ukraine's 7th Air Assault Corps, warned in an interview published on Nov. 10 that Russian forces were attempting to establish a logistical blockade around Zaporizhzhia.

He said Moscow could be seeking to open another axis of advance in the region, potentially forcing Kyiv to redeploy troops from Donetsk Oblast, where Russian forces have struggled to advance against heavily fortified Ukrainian positions.

Lasiichuk warned that losing Zaporizhzhia would be comparable to losing the Donbas region.

Around 75% of Zaporizhzhia Oblast is currently under Russian occupation, according to territorial data from the DeepState monitoring project, cited by Ukrainian media.

Meanwhile, Fedorov said Russian forces had carried out 972 strikes on 52 settlements across Zaporizhzhia Oblast over the preceding 24 hours, injuring 15 people, including two children.

The latest attacks were part of a wider overnight assault on Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched 117 drones against the country overnight, of which 80 were neutralized by Ukrainian air defenses and other defense units. Strikes were also reported in Kyiv, Rivne, Vinnytsia and Odesa, with civilian casualties and damage to residential buildings and other infrastructure. (ILKHA)