At least 4 people were killed while several others were either wounded or missing on August 27 in a second massive drone and missile Russian attack on Ukraine in as many days that included a strike on a hotel in Kryviy Rih, in the southern region of Dnipropetrovsk.
The fresh wave of attacks came as Rafael Grossi, the chief of the UN nuclear agency, was expected to visit the Russian nuclear plant in Kursk, where fighting has been under way since August 6, when Ukrainian forces launched a shock incursion into Russian territory.
Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram on August 27 that a man and a woman had been killed in the overnight missile attack on the Kryviy Rih hotel. "5 were wounded, a 43-year-old woman is in a severe state," Lysak said, adding that the fate of two more people was unknown, and they could still be under the rubble.
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Russian Missile Strike On Kryviy Rih Damages Hotel, Kills At Least 2
Lysak said that four high-rise buildings and several shops were also damaged in the attack. He said that Nikopol has also come under attack.
Local officials also said that two people had been killed in overnight Russian strikes in the southern region of Zaporizhzhya.
Air defense systems shot down all 15 drones that attacked Kyiv, the administration of the Ukrainian capital said, adding that a fire broke out due to falling debris in a forest park in the city's Dnipro district.
The August 27 attack prompted an all-out air-raid alert declared for the whole of Ukraine.
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The Ukrainian Air Force said it had shot down a total of 60 drones and 5 missiles early on August 27.
Reports of drone and missile attacks have also come from Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskiy, and other regions.
In the Khmelnytskiy region, eight Russian drones were shot down, but a person was wounded during the attack, regional governor Serhiy Tyurin said on Telegram.
Grossi, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Twitter that he was going to the Kursk nuclear plant to assess the situation there.
"Given the serious situation, I’m personally leading tomorrow’s IAEA mission to the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in Russia," Grossi said on X.
The plant is situated some 60 kilometers from the Ukrainian border on the banks of the Seym River, where heavy fighting has been under way for the past three weeks.
On August 26, Russian forces launched more than 200 drones and missiles at Ukraine's territory, killing at least seven people and damaging energy infrastructure.
The August 26 attack was condemned by U.S. President Joe Biden as "outrageous."
Following the August 26 attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on Ukraine's global allies to take "decisive action" and allow Ukraine to strike military targets deeper inside Russia with Western-provided weapons.
"Ukraine cannot be constrained in its long-range capabilities when the terrorists face no such limitations," Zelenskiy said.
"Weakness and inadequate responses fuel terror.... Every leader, every one of our partners, knows the decisive actions required to end this war justly," he added, while calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a "sick creature."