Ukraine Death Toll Climbs to 22 After Russian Strike on Pryluky

Rescuers on Thursday pulled bodies from the rubble of a residential building in Pryluky, Ukraine, that was struck by a Russian missile, raising the death toll to 22, including five children, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. The attack on Wednesday in the Chernihiv region also injured 54 people, seven of whom were children. The service reported that 15 survivors, including a child, were rescued from the debris.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that a cruise missile directly impacted the building in Pryluky, located approximately 150 kilometers (93 miles) east of the capital, Kyiv. This strike was part of a broader Russian missile and drone assault on Kyiv and over a dozen other regions, occurring on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s birthday.

"This is the kind of ‘gift’ Putin gave himself for his birthday,” Zelensky said in a nightly video address. “The killing of children, the killing of people.”

Zelensky has warned that Russia is likely to intensify its daily missile and drone attacks as winter approaches. In response to ongoing attacks, Ukraine’s energy company DTEK reported that the national grid operator Ukrenergo had ordered emergency power outages in Kyiv. These outages are separate from the regularly scheduled rolling blackouts implemented across the country.

Late Wednesday, Russian drones also struck Kyiv’s Obolonskyi and Desnianskyi districts. In Obolonskyi, a drone hit a courtyard between apartment buildings, resulting in two fatalities and seven injuries, including a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl. In the Desnianskyi district, a drone hit a residential building, causing the deaths of two women and injuring five, including girls aged 1 and 6.

Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a prolonged aerial conflict, while their ground forces remain largely in a stalemate over four and a half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion.