Two Killed After Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia City Hit By Russian Missile

The city lies about 50 kilometres northeast of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant which has been occupied by the Russian forces since the early weeks of the war.

A Russian missile attack on Wednesday killed two people and wounded at least two others in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, which is near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Ukrainian officials said. According to a Reuters report, earlier Ukrainian officials reported three deaths but one person was resuscitated, Minister Ihor Klymenko said. Russia had hit a residential area of the city, stated the city council secretary Anatoliy Kurtev. The city lies about 50 kilometres northeast of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant which has been occupied by the Russian forces since the early weeks of the war. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a video earlier which showed smoke billowing from the burning and damaged buildings next to a church.

Later, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine's presidential administration posted a photo of the church located close to the residential buildings. It is suspected that an Iskander missile was used in the attack. As per an Associated Press report, constant shelling in the plant’s surroundings has raised fears of a nuclear accident since the Russian took over the plant. 

Meanwhile, in Russia, an explosion on the grounds of a factory that makes optical equipment for Russia’s security forces north of Moscow killed one person, wounded 60 others and left at least eight people unaccounted for, officials said.

The Russian officials did not provide a suspected cause of the explosion at the Zagorsk Optical-Mechanical Plant located in the city of Sergiev Posad, less than 50 miles from Moscow. The explosion produced a tall plume of black smoke. The explosion damaged 38 apartment buildings and prompted an evacuation of nearby areas.

The blast occurred at a warehouse storing fireworks but was on the grounds of the Zagorsk optics manufacturing plant, said Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the region surrounding the Russian capital.

According to CNN, rescue team rushed to the site on Wednesday after the explosion amid concerns that people could still be under the rubble. Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region, was quoted as saying that rescuers will need about 12 hours to clear the rubble and people may still be left underneath it, three have already been removed – doctors assessed their condition as serious. 

The Investigative Committee, Russia’s top criminal investigations agency, was reported by AP as saying that it had launched a criminal inquiry on charges of violating industrial safety.