Guided-bomb strike on Zaporizhzhia: 20 killed, including three children. 11 October is a day of mourning

What happened

On the morning of 10 October Russian forces carried out several strikes on Zaporizhzhia with guided aerial bombs. One of them hit a five-storey residential building. As of 21:00, acting head of the regional military administration Mykhailo Semikin reported 20 dead and 32 injured. According to the State Emergency Service (DSNS), three children were among the dead and three more children were hurt.

Apartment blocks and private houses in the city were damaged or destroyed and cars wrecked. 11 October has been declared a day of mourning in Zaporizhzhia.

Searching the rubble

The death toll rose throughout the day. In the morning officials reported eight dead and 16 injured, while the fate of 12 more people was unknown. After 13:00 rescuers spoke of 15 dead, after 15:00 of 17. Rescuers managed to find a woman alive after she had spent more than eight hours under the rubble.

DSNS said rescuers saved three people and psychologists helped 35 residents. Search and rescue work was still under way in the evening.

The names of the dead

Among the dead are two pupils of city schools: first-grader Yelyzaveta Sorochyshyna of school No. 63 and eighth-grader Anna Mur-Zak of school No. 4, the city education department said. According to city council secretary Rehina Kharchenko, Yelyzaveta was visiting her uncle when the bomb hit. She would have turned seven at the end of October.

The Fedorivka village military administration reported the deaths of three generations of one family: grandmother Vira Sihaiova (born 1953), her daughter Nataliia Foshchan (born 1978), a medical worker, and granddaughter Polina (born 2010), an eleventh-grader. The family had moved to Zaporizhzhia after the full-scale invasion began, fleeing occupation. The husband and father, Serhii, stayed in the occupied part of the community and is missing.

Wider context

The Zaporizhzhia strike was part of massive attacks in recent days. According to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, more than 80 Ukrainian civilians were killed in two days of Russian strikes. On the same day a missile attack hit Kyiv, and in the Nikopol district an 11-year-old boy was killed by munitions dropped from a drone.

Russia releases guided aerial bombs from aircraft without entering the range of most Ukrainian air defences, which leaves front-line cities such as Zaporizhzhia especially vulnerable. In calls with partners that day, President Zelensky stressed that air defence is the top priority.