KYIV, Ukraine — Russia bombed the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine on Wednesday, officials said, killing at least 13 people in a brazen daytime attack.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said “dozens” of people had been wounded in the attack and warned that the toll could rise.
“There is nothing more cruel than launching aerial bombs on a city, knowing that ordinary civilians will suffer,” he wrote in a post on the social platform X that included video purporting to show dead and wounded people lying on city streets as rescuers rushed to respond.
The regional governor of Zaporizhzhia, Ivan Fedorov, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app that at least 37 people were wounded in the attack, which “cynically struck the city in the middle of the day.” He shared graphic images that he said were from the scene, where numerous medical teams and emergency workers were responding.
The city of Zaporizhzhia was once considered relatively safe, but in recent months has increasingly come under attack. It is strategically important to Ukraine’s defense of the south, and also holds symbolic significance as the capital of the Zaporizhzhia region, which Russia has sought to annex.
The death toll from Wednesday’s attack was the largest from a single strike in recent weeks, and comes as both Russia and Ukraine are trying to project strength before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Hours before air-raid warnings were issued for Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian drones attacked an oil depot near a critical military airfield in southern Russia. The attack was the latest in a Ukrainian campaign aimed at inflicting pain deep inside Russia even as Ukraine’s forces lose ground at home on the battlefield.
Ukraine’s military said early Wednesday it had struck the Kristall oil storage facility in Engels, about 300 miles from the border between the two countries. It said the depot supplied fuel to the Engels airfield, which it has said is a staging ground for Russia’s long-running attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and which hosts some of Russia’s long-range, nuclear-capable bombers.
A Russian official wrote on the Telegram messaging app that a “massive” drone attack had targeted Engels. Roman Busargin, the governor of the Saratov region, said air defenses had intercepted the drones but that falling debris had hit an “industrial facility” and ignited a fire.
Two firefighters died battling the blaze, Busargin said about 10 hours later, as the flames still raged and he declared a state of emergency.
A video circulating on Telegram and verified by The New York Times showed several structures on fire at the Kristall facility, which is about 5 miles from the Engels airfield. Other videos verified by the Times showed what appeared to be multiple explosions and huge plumes of smoke rising into the sky.
Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the airfield in trying to limit the strikes on Ukraine’s energy system, which have plunged cities into darkness, battering the Ukrainian grid and forcing officials to scramble for alternative power options.
The latest attack came as Ukrainian forces were pressing what appeared to be a renewed offensive in the Kursk region in western Russia. Both sides have reported fierce fighting over the past few days in Kursk, where Ukrainian troops seized about 500 square miles of territory in a surprise cross-border incursion last summer.
Russia has since regained roughly half of the territory it lost. Analysts have said the renewed offensive appears to be Ukraine’s attempt to regain momentum and demonstrate its capabilities before Trump takes office.
Trump has vowed to bring the war to a quick end, without saying how. That has spurred concerns his administration might cut off military aid to Ukraine. The Biden administration has been rushing to get additional assistance to Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Two senior U.S. defense officials said the Biden administration was set to announce a “substantial” final aid package for Ukraine on Thursday while Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is in Germany for talks with a coalition of Ukraine’s backers.
It will be Austin’s 25th — and last — meeting with the group, which includes about 50 countries and which he formed to discuss Ukraine’s security needs after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
The meeting “will focus on the need to ensure continued delivery of key capabilities including air defense systems, artillery munitions, and armored vehicles,” according to the Pentagon.
When asked Wednesday whether there was concern about the future of the coalition once Trump takes office, the two senior defense officials told reporters traveling with Austin they were confident European allies would carry on the work — regardless of whether the new U.S. administration decreases its support.
While the scale of the new Kursk offensive remains unclear, military analysts have suggested it could also be an attempt to force Russia to divert troops away from the front lines of eastern Ukraine, where they have been steadily wearing down Ukraine’s defenses to seize new ground.
On Monday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had captured Kurakhove, a strategic town in eastern Ukraine, after months of heavy fighting.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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