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Russia targeted Zaporizhzhya overnight with several missiles, one of which struck an apartment building in the southern Ukrainian city, killing and wounding a number of people, regional authorities reported on October 18, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned the attack and said that “Russian terror must lose.”

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Regional governor Yuriy Malashko told RFE/RL that two people died, three are missing, and three others were wounded when the S-300 antiaircraft missile hit the building.

The explosion destroyed floors three, four, and five of the residential building, the Interior Ministry said in a statement, on Facebook adding that some 50 residents were evacuated.

“Terrorists’ missile attacks on the city, on the infrastructure, on a residential building — an ordinary five-story building. Eight apartments were destroyed. There are wounded and dead. There may be people under the rubble. Emergency and rescue operations are ongoing,” Zelenskiy wrote on Facebook.

“We will do everything to make the terrorist state bear fair responsibility. Russian terror must lose,” the Ukrainian present added.

Malashko told RFE/RL that the strike did not have a clear military purpose. “After all, neither critical infrastructure nor military facilities are nearby. This is the center of the city, where ordinary human life goes on. Why they hit this house in particular is unclear,” he said.

Russian strikes killed two more people over the past 24 hours in southern Ukraine — one in the southern region of Kherson, and one near the city of Dnipro.

Russia has been constantly shelling and launching air strikes at Ukrainian cities, killing and wounding civilians and causing extensive damage to civilian and energy infrastructure.

In the eastern region of Donetsk, a civilian was killed in the village of Netyalovo when his home was shelled by Russian forces, local authorities said.

Separately, Ukrainian authorities said a man was killed in the northeastern region of Kharkiv when his tractor drove over a landmine.

Meanwhile, Moscow claimed it had repelled Ukrainian drone attacks on occupied Crimea and two Russian regions.

Russia’s Defense Ministry says its forces shot down 28 drones that attacked its Kursk and Belgorod regions and Crimea overnight.

The ministry said 10 drones were destroyed above Crimea. Kursk Governor Roman Starovoit said 12 drones were shot down by Russia’s air defenses over his region.

Six drones were destroyed by Russian air defenses in the Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. No casualties were reported. Ukraine did not comment on the Russian report, which could not be independently verified.

On October 17, Zelenskiy said Ukraine used U.S.-made an Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in overnight attacks, which the Ukrainian military said destroyed nine Russian military helicopters, an ammunition depot, and an air-defense launching system.

The missile strikes on October 17 hit airfields in Berdyansk, in the southern Zaporizhzhya region, and Luhansk, in the east — areas that are currently under Russian occupation.

On the battlefield, Ukraine’s General Staff said on October 18 that its forces fought 69 close-quarter battles along the whole front line.

Heavy fighting continued around the eastern city of Avdiyivka, just north of Donetsk, where Russian forces have been attempting a breakthrough for the past number of days.

Vitaliy Barabash, the head of Avdiyivka’s military administration, told Ukrainian television on October 18 that the Russian offensive represented the largest assault on Avdiyivka since the start of the war in February last year.

But Barabash said that Russian forces appear to have run out of ammunition and troops since they started the attack on Avdiyivka on October 10.

“Less shelling, fewer missile strikes, even fewer assaults on our positions,” he said.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters