A Russian missile strikes a Ukrainian city already in mourning for deaths in an earlier attack

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile slammed into Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday, local authorities said, just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home city was observing an official day of mourning for an attack the previous day that killed four civilians at a hotel.

The latest attack on the city struck civilian infrastructure, wounding four people, local administration head Oleksandr Vilkul said on social media.

The previous attack on Tuesday, which also wounded five people in Kryvyi Rih in addition to the four dead, was part of a barrage of dozens of missiles and drones across Ukraine that Russia launched for a second consecutive day.

“When Kryvyi Rih is in mourning, the enemy attacks again. And it once again aims at civilians,” regional head Serhii Lysak said Wednesday.

Russia stepped up its bombing of Ukraine on Monday, when it fired more than 100 missiles and a similar number of drones in its biggest onslaught in weeks.

The intensified bombing campaign coincided with what could prove to be a decisive period of the war, which Russia launched on Feb. 24, 2022.

Russian forces have been driving deeper into Ukraine’s partly occupied eastern Donetsk region, whose total capture is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions. Russia's army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defense in the area.

At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion onto Russian soil since World War II. The move is in part an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.

At the hotel in Kryvyi Rih, rescuers on Wednesday found another body under the rubble. The rescue operation was subsequently ended.

Meanwhile, Ukraine claimed its anti-aircraft defenses destroyed a Russian Su-25 jet in the Donetsk region.

Ukraine also kept up its long-range drone attacks on Russia’s rear logistical areas, setting fire to a fuel depot.

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In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024, a Russian Army Buk-2M self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile system fires at air targets in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

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