Russian missiles, drones hit Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia again as death toll rises

The Emergency Services of Ukraine said the toll of Russian S-300 missile strikes on the city a day earlier rose to 11 and another 21 people were rescued from the rubble of destroyed apartments.

The death toll from a missile attack on apartment buildings in a southern Ukrainian city rose to 11 as more Russian missiles and — for the first time — explosive packed drones targeted Ukrainian-held Zaporizhzhia on October 7.

As the war sparked by Russia's February invasion of Ukraine ground on, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to human rights organisations in Russia and Ukraine, and an activist jailed in Russian ally Belarus.

Asked by a reporter whether the prize shared by Belarus rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties should be seen as a “birthday gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who turned 70 on Friday, committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen said no.

“The prize is not addressing President Putin, not for his birthday or in any other sense, except that his government, as the government in Belarus, is representing an authoritarian government that is suppressing human rights activists,” Mr. Reiss-Andersen said.

Mr. Putin this week illegally claimed four regions of Ukraine as Russian territory, including the Zaporizhzhia region that is home to a sprawling nuclear power plant under Russian occupation; the city of the same name remains under Ukrainian control.

With its army losing ground to a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the country's south and east, Russia has deployed Iranian-made drones to attack Ukrainian targets. The unmanned, disposable “kamikaze drones” are cheaper and less sophisticated than missiles but have proved effective at causing damage to targets on the ground.

The regional Governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones damaged two infrastructure facilities in the city of Zaporizhzhia, the first time they were used there. He said missiles also struck the city again, injuring one person.