KYIV: Ukraine on Saturday mourned 18 people, including nine children, killed in a Russian ballistic missile strike on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home city of Kryvyi Rig, as the region’s governor said it was “the kind of pain you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”
Sixty-one people were wounded, 12 of them children, Dnipropetrovsk governor Sergiy Lysak said after emergency operations were completed overnight.
The missile attack on Friday, one of the deadliest in recent weeks, struck a residential area near a children’s playground, said Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of Kryvyi Rig’s military administration.
“On 7, 8 and 9 April, days of mourning will be declared in Kryvyi Rig for those killed as a result of yesterday’s terrorist attacks on our city by the killer country,” he said.
“Children, families, the elderly... Ballistic missile and shakedown attacks on residential areas and playgrounds... This is nothing less than a mass murder of civilians.”
Pictures circulated by rescue services showed several bodies, one stretched out near a playground swing.
“This is the kind of pain you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy,” Lysak said.
Russia’s defense ministry said it “delivered a precision strike with a high-explosive missile on a restaurant” in the city “where commanders of formations and Western instructors were meeting.”
It said its air defense units had intercepted and destroyed 49 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The commander of the Ukrainian army retorted that Moscow was “trying to cover up its cynical crime” and “spreading false information” about the target of the strike.
He accused Russia of “war crimes.”
The Ukrainian air force said on Saturday Russia had launched 92 drones across Ukraine overnight.
Fifty one had been shot down and around 30 others had landed without causing damage.
US President Donald Trump, who said during his re-election campaign he could end the three-year conflict within days, is pushing the two sides to agree a ceasefire but his administration has failed to broker an accord acceptable to both.
Zelensky said the missile attack showed Russia had no interest in stopping its full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022.
“There is only one reason why this continues — Russia does not want a ceasefire and we see it. The whole world sees it,” he said.
“The missile struck an area near residential buildings, a playground and ordinary streets.
“People who are capable of that kind of thing aren’t human, They are bastards,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky on Friday met the heads of the British and French military in Kyiv to discuss a plan by London and Paris to send a “reassurance” force to Ukraine if and when a peace deal is reached.
This is one of the latest efforts by European leaders to agree a coordinated policy after Trump sidelined them and opened direct talks with the Kremlin.
“Together, we want to guarantee a lasting and solid peace in Ukraine, an essential condition for the security of the European continent,” Thierry Burkhard, chief of the French defense staff, said on X on Saturday.
Burkhard and his British counterpart, Tony Radakin, also met their Ukrainian counterpart Oleksandr Syrsky and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.
Kryvyi Rig, in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the front line, and has regularly been targeted by Russian drones and missiles.
Zelensky was born in the industrial city, which had a pre-war population of around 600,000 people.

BUDAPEST/WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit the White House on Monday to discuss recently announced tariffs with US President Donald Trump, three Israeli officials said on Saturday.
The impromptu visit was first reported by Axios, which said that if the visit takes place, the Israeli leader would be the first foreign leader to meet with Trump in person to try to negotiate a deal to remove tariffs.
Netanyahu’s office has not confirmed the visit, that would likely also include discussions on Iran and Israel’s war against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
The surprise invite by Trump came in a phone-call on Thursday with Netanyahu, who is presently on a visit to Hungary, when the Israeli leader raised the tariff issue, according to the Israeli officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
As part of a sweeping new tariff policy announced by Trump, unspecified Israeli goods exports to the United States face a 17 percent tariff. The US is Israel’s closest ally and largest single trading partner.
An Israeli finance ministry official said on Thursday that Trump’s latest tariff announcement could impact Israel’s exports of machinery and medical equipment.
Israel had already moved to cancel its remaining tariffs on US imports on Tuesday. The two countries signed a free trade agreement 40 years ago and about 98 percent of goods from the US are now tax-free.