Zelenskyy calls attack on Dnipro residential building a 'war crime'; death toll goes up

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the Russian attack on a Dnipro apartment building a "war crime". Zelenskyy made the statement during his nightly address Monday. The mayor of Dnipro stated that 44 people have died as a result of the cruise missile strike by Russia on an apartment building over the weekend. In other words, the death toll has risen since an earlier announcement of 41 deaths. According to a report from CNN, four children have died as a result of the strike. 

According to a UN report, a total of 11,327 people have been injured in the war in Ukraine, including 2,472 men, 1,764 women, 240 girls, and 325 boys, as well as 262 children and 6,264 adults whose gender is not specified. In Donetsk and Luhansk, there were 9,853 casualties, including 4,102 killed and 5,751 injured.

On the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government, there were 7,685 casualties, including 3,607 deaths and 4,078 injuries. On territory controlled by Russian armed forces and their allied groups, there were 2,168 casualties, including 495 deaths and 1,673 injuries. Most of these deaths were caused by the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects, such as heavy artillery, missiles, and air strikes.

Who is responsible for the strike on the residential building?

Approximately 1,700 individuals resided in the high-rise building and search and rescue teams have been continuously working since the strike on Saturday to find both victims and survivors amid the debris. When asked about the incident on Monday, the spokesperson for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, stated that the Russian military does not aim at residential buildings and proposed that the building in Dnipro was hit as a result of actions taken by Ukrainian air defense, as per a report from CBC news.

In other words, Ukrainian air defence, in an attempt to fend of Russian missile strike, ended up diverting the Russian missile towards a residential building. The attack on the building occurred during a broader attack of Russian cruise missiles on Ukraine. The Ukrainian military has said that they do not possess the capability to intercept the specific type of Russian missile that struck the residential building in Dnipro.