Death toll rises to 19 in Russian strikes on Ukraine

KYIV: Ukraine said Tuesday that at least 19 people were killed and more than 100 wounded as a result of Russian strikes across the country a day earlier.

“According to preliminary data, 19 people were killed and 105 more were injured,” Ukraine’s emergency services said on Facebook.

The emergency services previously reported a figure of 14 dead and 97 injured.

Mass retaliatory strikes hit Ukraine nationwide on Monday, after Moscow blamed Kyiv for a blast on a bridge connecting Russia to Crimea, a peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraine said Russian forces had fired more than 80 missiles on cities across the country — including the capital Kyiv — damaging in particular energy facilities.

More than 300 localities were without power across the county following the attacks, the emergency services said.

The emergency services also said Russia on Tuesday morning carried out a strike on Zaporizhzhia, a Ukraine-controlled city in an eponymous region that Moscow claimed to have annexed.

They said 12 S-300 missiles were fired at “civilian” infrastructure, killing one person in the latest of a series of attacks on the city over the past week.