WATCH Russian Strike On Mykolaiv Residential Building Kills Three

Another residential building has been hit by Russian missiles in Mykolaiv. 

At least three people have been killed and five wounded by the missile strike on a residential building which took place in the early hours of June 29, in Ukraine’s southern city of Mykolaiv, local authorities have confirmed.

Mykolaiv city mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said eight missiles hit the port city and urged residents to evacuate, saying the residential building appeared to have been hit by a Russian X-55 cruise missile.

Video from the scene showed smoke billowing from a four-story building, with its upper floor partially destroyed.

Today’s attack follows a ferocious bombardment on Mykolaiv the previous day, June 28, with Head of the Mykolaiv Regional Defense Command, Vitaliy Kim, confirming that 11 long-range Russian Federation missiles launched from the Black Sea struck residential buildings across the city in the early hours of the morning.

Ukrainian air defense units shot down one of the missiles, he said.

Russian army ground forces fired 220mm Uragan artillery rockets at Mykolaiv as well, Senkevych said in a statement.

The barrage hit shortly after sunrise, he said.

Kim said the Uragan strikes killed three Mykolaiv civilians and injured six. One of the dead was a six-year-old girl, while one of the injured, now in a coma, was a three-month-old baby, Kim said.

Wheat fields were also struck in the attacks, with Russia continuing to target grain supplies across the country. In a statement posted on Facebook, the Main Department of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service in Mykolaiv Region said:

“On June 27, 2022, rescuers extinguished five fires in Mykolaiv Region, which were caused by the enemy shelling. In particular, 10 hectares of winter wheat plantations burnt down in the Kutsurub community, as they had been hit with Russian projectiles and shell fragments. Rescuers prevented fire from spreading to winter wheat fields located nearby.”

In addition, Russian shelling set fire to 8,000 square meters of land containing a grain storage facility in the Pervomaysk community in Mykolaiv.

However, firefighters were able to extinguish the fire with minimal resulting damage.

Mayor Senkevych said in an interview with Radio Liberty that the city was experiencing heavy shelling and that “around 80% of those munitions are cluster munitions” fired from Russian multiple-launch rocket systems.

He said the city is now witnessing a large evacuation of civilians, with an estimated 230,000 people still living there – less than half of its peacetime population of 480,000. He urged for “everyone who wants to survive” to join the evacuation, stating, “it’s not clear when all this will be over.”

The deadly attacks on Mykolaiv come after two RF X-22 anti-ship missiles slammed into the central city of Kremenchuk on the afternoon of Monday, June 27. One of the missiles reportedly hit a field, but the second detonated after hitting a shopping center full of civilians.