Russian Strike Kills 13 in Southeastern Ukraine

The attack, which also wounded dozens of people, came hours after Ukraine’s military attacked an oil depot deep inside Russia.

Russia bombed the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine on Wednesday, officials said, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens in a brazen daytime attack.

“There is nothing more cruel than launching aerial bombs on a city, knowing that ordinary civilians will suffer,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine wrote in a post on X that included video showing dead and wounded people lying on city streets as rescuers rushed to respond.

The local authorities said that more than 60 people were wounded in the attack, which the regional governor of Zaporizhzhia, Ivan Fedorov, noted “cynically struck the city in the middle of the day.” He shared graphic images on the Telegram messaging app that he said were from the scene, where medical teams and emergency workers were responding.

Slavko Khudiakov, a volunteer paramedic, was in the city by chance to recuperate between frontline rotations. He said that he raced to the scene of the explosion — blowing through red lights on the way.

“I arrived maybe seven minutes after the strike,” Mr. Khudiakov, 40, said in a telephone interview.

He said he treated a man “with a torn-off leg,” and before the night was over he had treated about 10 people with “heavy” injuries. At least four were missing limbs, he added, and others were wounded by shrapnel.

Zaporizhzhia was once considered relatively safe, but in recent months the city has increasingly come under attack. It is strategically important to Ukraine’s defense of the south, and also holds symbolic significance as the capital of the Zaporizhzhia region, which Russia has sought to annex. The region is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which Russian forces seized in 2022 in the early days of the full-scale invasion.

The death toll from Wednesday’s attack was the largest from a single strike in recent weeks, and comes as both Russia and Ukraine are trying to project strength before President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration.

Hours before air-raid warnings were issued for Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian drones attacked an oil depot near a critical military airfield in southern Russia. The attack was the latest in a Ukrainian campaign aimed at inflicting pain deep inside Russia even as Kyiv’s forces lose ground at home on the battlefield.

Ukraine’s military said early on Wednesday that it had struck the Kristall oil storage facility in Engels, around 300 miles from the border between the two countries.

It said the depot supplied fuel to the Engels airfield, which it has said is a staging ground for Russia’s long-running attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and which hosts some of Russia’s long-range, nuclear-capable bombers.

A Russian official wrote on the Telegram messaging app that a “massive” drone attack had targeted Engels. Roman Busargin, the governor of the Saratov region, said that air defenses had intercepted the drones but that falling debris had hit an “industrial facility” and ignited a fire.

Two firefighters died battling the blaze, Mr. Busargin said around 10 hours later, as the flames still raged and he declared a state of emergency.

A video circulating on Telegram and verified by The New York Times showed several structures on fire at the Kristall facility, which is roughly five miles from the Engels airfield. Other videos verified by The Times showed what appeared to be multiple explosions and huge plumes of smoke rising into the sky.

Kyiv has repeatedly targeted the airfield in trying to limit the strikes on Ukraine’s energy system, which have plunged cities into darkness, battering the Ukrainian grid and forcing officials to scramble for alternative power options.

The latest attack came as Ukrainian forces were pressing what appeared to be a renewed offensive in the Kursk region in western Russia. Both sides have reported fierce fighting over the past few days in Kursk, where Ukrainian troops seized about 500 square miles of territory in a surprise cross-border incursion last summer.

Russia has since regained roughly half of the territory it lost. Analysts have said the renewed offensive appears to be Ukraine’s attempt to regain momentum and demonstrate its capabilities before Mr. Trump takes office.

Mr. Trump has vowed to bring the war to a quick end, without saying how. That has spurred concerns that his administration might cut off military aid to Ukraine. The Biden administration has been rushing to get additional assistance to Kyiv before Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III is expected to announce a $500 million shipment of arms and materiel for Ukraine on Thursday, according to an American defense official who requested anonymity, lacking authorization discuss the matter publicly.

The announcement would come during a visit by Mr. Austin to Germany for talks with a coalition of Kyiv’s backers that formed after Russia’s full-scale invasion. It will be Mr. Austin’s 25th — and last — meeting with the group, which includes about 50 countries.

When asked on Wednesday whether there was concern about the future of the coalition once Mr. Trump takes office, two senior defense officials told reporters traveling with Mr. Austin that they were confident European allies would carry on the work — regardless of whether the new U.S. administration decreased its support.

While the scale of the new Kursk offensive remains unclear, military analysts have suggested that it could also be an attempt to force Russia to divert troops away from the front lines of eastern Ukraine, where they have been steadily wearing down Kyiv’s defenses to seize new ground.

On Monday, Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had captured Kurakhove, a strategic town in eastern Ukraine, after months of heavy fighting.

Many civilians fleeing the fighting in the east have sought shelter in Zaporizhzhia, which has been shaken by a spate of Russian strikes in recent months.

Several of the attacks have featured glide bombs — unguided Soviet-era weapons converted into long-range, more precise weapons with a “guidance kit” of small wings and fins. Experts have said they believe Russia has somehow modified the bombs to extend their range.

Previously deployed to devastating effect on frontline positions and near the Russian border, the bombs have increasingly been used to strike cities like Zaporizhzhia that were once considered beyond their reach.

Glide bombs are considered particularly dangerous because they are hard to intercept — and the local authorities said two of them hit Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday. There was no comment from Russia’s defense ministry.

Dmytro Sokolovsky, 55, said his apartment shook from the force of two nearby explosions on Wednesday. He could see the building that was hit from his apartment.

“I realized I needed to go there, as they hit the main entrance when the people were coming from work,” he said.

When he got to the scene, Mr. Sokolovsky said, “it was hell.”

There was a woman screaming in pain. Ambulances had not yet arrived. And people like him were trying to help the wounded. There were no stretchers, Mr. Sokolovsky said, so the wounded were loaded onto blown-off doors and carried gingerly as they slid in their own blood.

He called the strike a crime, especially given the timing: The end of the work day, when people were going home.

“They want to scare people,” he said of Russia’s military. “Tell them: we are not scared. No one who was carrying injured today thought to run away to save their lives.”

Sanjana Varghese, John Ismay and Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed reporting.

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

• New Attack in Kursk: Ukrainian forces have gone on the offensive in the Kursk region of Russia, in what appeared to be an effort to regain the initiative there as they struggle to thwart relentless Russian assaults across eastern Ukraine.
• Halting Russia’s Natural Gas: Ukraine’s refusal to renew an agreement that allowed Russia to send natural gas through a pipeline to Europe could affect Moscow’s ability to fund its war in Ukraine.
• Putin’s Speech: Speaking on the 25th anniversary of his rule, President Vladimir Putin of Russia delivered an upbeat and vague New Year’s Eve message that did not address casualties in Ukraine or rising inflation at home.

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• Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs, videos and radio transmissions to independently confirm troop movements and other details.
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