Russian strike on Kryvyi Rih: four injured, including two medical workers

Four people have been injured, including two medical workers, in a Russian strike on the city of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, as The Kyiv Independent reports, citing regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha.

The strike is the latest in an unbroken wave of Russian attacks on the industrial city, which is also the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Kryvyi Rih, with around 600,000 inhabitants, has been hit repeatedly by Russian drones and missiles over more than four years of war — among the heaviest attacks remains the one in August, when a drone strike on a shopping centre left 16 dead and more than 130 injured.

The city is going through a particularly difficult period: as Reuters reported on 5 October, Russian air strikes have halted the city’s giant steel plant and its mines, crippling the local economy. The city’s largest employer, the ArcelorMittal mining and metallurgical complex, suspended operations after a series of ballistic missile attacks last month, attacks that also left two contractor employees dead.

The new strike on Kryvyi Rih comes at the height of a mutual escalation: during the night of 5→6 October, Ukrainian drones hit the Moscow region — including the large Volodarsk oil hub, about 40 km from the centre of the Russian capital — while Russia intensified its attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, including bridges over the Dnipro River in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia. The Russian Defence Ministry threatened on Sunday to intensify attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

The city’s mayor, Oleksandr Vilkul, has said that the situation in Kryvyi Rih is “worse than anywhere else, except the front line”, with hospitals, schools and public transport operating under emergency conditions.