This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Russian air strikes on Ukrainian cities on March 22 killed at least nine people as heavy fighting continued in the eastern Donetsk region for the control of the city of Bakhmut.
At least eight people were killed and seven were injured when two dormitories were hit at a college in Rzhyshchiv, 64 kilometers south of Kyiv, emergency services said on Facebook.
One person was rescued from the site and four people were believed to be trapped under rubble. Rescue operations continued past nightfall, according to Reuters.
Hours later, two residential buildings were damaged in a missile strike on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhya. One person was killed and 29 were taken to hospital in that strike, said Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.
The regional military administration said the strike had “no military purpose.”
Klymenko said authorities at the site recorded evidence of “another war crime of the Russian Federation against the civilian population.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the attacks showed Moscow is not interested in peace.
“More than 20 Iranian killer drones, as well as missiles, multiple shelling. And this is just for one past night of Russian terror against Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said on Twitter. “Every time someone tries to hear the word “peace” in Moscow, another order is given for such criminal strikes,” he added in an apparent reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Russia, which ended on March 22.
Zelenskiy posted a video on Telegram purporting to show the moment of the strike on the apartment building in Zaporizhzhya captured by a CCTV camera.
“Russia is shelling the city with bestial savagery. Residential areas where ordinary people and children live are being fired at. The terrorist state seeks to destroy our cities, our state, our people,” Zelenskiy wrote in the message accompanying the video depicting a powerful blast hitting a high-rise building.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its daily report that Russia launched another massive air strike with Iranian-made drones.
“According to preliminary information, 16 out of 21 drones launched by the enemy were destroyed by our defenders,” it said, adding that the threat of air strikes remained high across the country.
In the northern Zhytomyr region, a drone attack damaged an infrastructure facility, the head of the regional military administration Vitaliy Bunechko said on Telegram.
In the Bakhmut direction, the enemy continues to conduct offensive actions, but its offensive potential is decreasing, the General Staff said.
“The enemy does not stop its attempt to seize the city, losing a considerable amount of manpower, weapons, and military equipment.”
Zelenskiy on March 22 visited Bakhmut, the city that has been the epicenter of months of intense fighting that has caused heavy losses to both sides.
Zelenskiy presented decorations to the defenders of Bakhmut, and was briefed on the operational situation on the front line, his press service said.
In Sevastopol, in the Russian-occupied Crimea, the Moscow-installed authorities announced the suspension of ferry transportation in the area of the Black Sea port where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is headquartered.
Earlier, Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said the city air defenses had repelled an attack by Ukrainian drones.
The information could not be independently verified and Ukraine has not commented on the alleged incident.
