<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>At least 17 people including a child died when seven Russian missiles struck the industrial town of Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian authorities said Saturday.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The missiles struck before dawn on Thursday, with three landing in the town centre, just 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the artillery battles of the southern front.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"In total, 17 people were killed," Ukraine's State Emergency Service said on Telegram, adding that one of them was a child.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The toll has repeatedly risen since an initial tally of one dead. Earlier on Saturday, it had stood at 14.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A five-storey residential building on the main street was almost razed to the ground.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">President Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out on Telegram saying Zaporizhzhia "is subjected to massive rocket attacks every day... (it's a) deliberate crime".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Ukrainian-controlled city is located in the eponymous Zaporizhzhia region, also home to the Russian-occupied nuclear plant that has been the site of heavy shelling.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Moscow claims to have annexed the region even though its forces do not control all of it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ukraine said at least 30 people were killed last week when a convoy of civilian cars in the Zaporizhzhia region was shelled in an attack Kyiv blamed on Moscow. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>