Death toll of Russian strike on apartment block in Dnipro reaches 35, with two children among the dead

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The number of casualties resulting from the Russian rocket strike on a residential building in Dnipro has increased from 30 to 35, with the bodies of two children retrieved from under the debris. Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Region Military Administration Valentyn Reznichenko reported on this development in the official Telegram channel of the authority.

During the night, rescue services retrieved the bodies of several more victims from the ruins of the house. Thirty-nine tenants have been rescued; 75 are injured, including 14 children.

“The fate of 35 more tenants remains unknown. The search and rescue operation is ongoing.”

Reznichenko also published an image of an emergency response worker among the ruins. According to him, the operation has been continuing for 40 hours already.

On the night of January 16, Russian continued its missile strikes across Ukraine, including a hit on Zaporizhzhia and its outskirts, according to the head of the Zaporizhzhia Military Administration Oleksandr Starukh. Russian missiles destroyed civil, housing, and industrial facilities, injuring multiple city residents.

During yet another massive missile strike on Ukraine on January 14, one of the rockets hit a nine-story apartment block in Dnipro, destroying two of its sections. Yuriy Ignat, the spokesperson of the AFU Air Force, announced that the missile was a Kh-22 rocket launched from a Tu-22M3 bomber from around Kursk or from the Sea of Azov. Presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych suggested that the missile was shot down by a Ukrainian air defense system, causing it to crash into a residential block. However, Dnipro mayor Borys Filatov wrote that “Arestovych is a pompous ass and a potty mouth”, calling on the SBU and other Ukrainian security services to “respond” to Arestovych's allegations. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Force pointed out that they “do not possess weapons capable of shooting down this type of missile”.

Notably, none of the major Russian state-owned media, such as RIA Novosti or TASS, published a single item about the strike, the destruction, or the civilian casualties of the attack in Dnipro. In its report, the Russian Defense Ministry covered the missile strike but insisted that the armed forces “hit Ukraine’s military command system and associated energy facilities”. Spokesman Igor Konashenkov did not mention the victims either, reducing his report to: “All designated targets were hit. The mission was completed successfully.”