War in Ukraine, day 858 | Day of mourning in Zaporizhzhia region after deadly attacks

(Kyiv) The Zaporizhia region, in southern Ukraine, declared a day of mourning on Sunday, the day after a Russian strike which left seven dead and nearly forty injured.

“June 30 is a day of mourning in the Zaporizhia region in memory of those killed by the enemy attack on Vilniansk,” regional governor Ivan Fedorov said on social media.

Three children, a woman and three men were killed by this strike on Saturday on Vilniansk which also left 36 injured, according to the Interior Ministry. The locality is 29 kilometers northeast of Zaporizhia, the main regional city, under Ukrainian control.

Images released by emergency services showed workers clearing debris, a low-rise building almost completely destroyed and officials saying the strike hit shops.

Eight people were killed in 24 hours in villages in the east of the country, Ukraine announced.

And Russian strikes against the city of Vilnyansk, added to those on villages in the Donetsk region in the east, left a total of 11 dead on Saturday, according to Ukrainian authorities.

The Ukrainian military said on Saturday that Russia continued to attack the town of Toretsk, where it launched an offensive in recent weeks, and that a battle was underway in the village of New York, close to the front.

New York has been intensely attacked since mid-June as Russian forces advance towards the city of Toretsk, facing an adversary lacking men and ammunition.

After these deadly strikes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on his Western allies to “accelerate” their arms deliveries.

Russia claims to have annexed the Zaporizhzhia region, but while it occupies large swathes of it, it does not control it completely.

The Russian military has already attacked Zaporizhzhia and neighboring towns several times since the start of its offensive in Ukraine in 2022, but in recent weeks it has concentrated its efforts mainly in the east of the country rather than in the south.