Russian missile attack kills five family members, Zelensky says

A Russian missile strike on a village near Kryvyi Rih killed at least five members of the same family, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday, in one of the most devastating single-family losses reported since the war began. A sixth person also died in the attack, bringing the total death toll from the strike to six.

Children among the dead

The victims included a six-year-old girl and two boys aged 11 and 17. That’s three children killed in a single strike on a residential area in central Ukraine. The village sits near Kryvyi Rih, the industrial city that also happens to be Zelensky’s hometown, roughly 400 kilometres southeast of Kyiv.

Zelensky posted about the attack on Telegram late Monday, describing the strike as further proof of what he called Russia’s deliberate targeting of civilian lives. He didn’t hold back in his language, calling the killings “pure evil” and demanding stronger air defense support from Ukraine’s Western partners.

What we know about the strike

Ukrainian emergency services confirmed they responded to the scene after the missile hit. So far, officials haven’t publicly specified the type of missile used, but strikes on the Dnipropetrovsk region — where Kryvyi Rih is located — have frequently involved Russian S-300 systems repurposed for ground attack and Iskander ballistic missiles in recent months.

Rescue workers recovered six bodies from the rubble. The exact layout of the structure that was hit hasn’t been confirmed, but local officials described it as a private residential building.

It’s not the first time the Kryvyi Rih area has been targeted. The city and its surrounding villages have faced repeated strikes throughout 2023 and 2024, with attacks on infrastructure and residential zones killing dozens over that period.

International reaction

A spokesperson for the Ukrainian foreign ministry called for an emergency session of international partners to accelerate weapons deliveries. “Every day of delay costs lives — civilian lives, children’s lives,” the spokesperson said. “The international community cannot keep responding with words alone.”

Western governments haven’t yet issued specific statements about Monday’s strike, though the U.S. and European allies have condemned Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians as a matter of routine policy throughout the conflict.

A war with no sign of ending

Still, the strikes keep coming. And the toll on ordinary Ukrainian families — people with no military role, no strategic value, simply living in their homes — continues to climb.

Russia has not commented on the strike. Moscow has consistently denied deliberately targeting civilians, a claim Ukrainian officials and independent monitors have repeatedly disputed with documented evidence.

With winter approaching and energy infrastructure already strained from previous attacks, Ukrainian authorities are bracing for what many analysts expect will be an intensified aerial campaign in the coming months. Whether Ukraine’s air defenses can absorb that pressure — without significant new hardware from allies — remains the defining question heading into the conflict’s fourth year.