Body of toddler pulled from rubble in Ukraine

Ukrainian State Emergency Service firefighters clear the rubble at the building in Kryvyi Rih. Pic/AP

Emergency crews pulled the body of a toddler from the rubble in a pre-dawn search for survivors on Saturday. A Russian missile strike had toren through an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.

The missile was one of what Ukrainian authorities said were 16 that eluded air defences among the 76 missiles fired Friday in the latest Russian attack targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, part of Moscow's strategy to leave Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in the dark and cold this winter.

Gov Valentyn Reznichenko of the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Kryvyi Rih is located, wrote on social media that "rescuers retrieved the body of a one-and-a-half-year-old boy from under the rubble of a house destroyed by a Russian rocket." In all, four people were killed in the strike, and 13 injured - four of them children - authorities said.

Reznichenko said the pounding from Russian forces continued overnight, damaging power lines and houses in the cities and towns of Nikopol, Marhanets and Chervonohryhorivka, which are across the Dnieper River from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

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By Saturday morning, Ukraine's military leadership said Russian forces had fired more than a score of other missiles, since the barrage a day earlier. It did not say how many of those might have been stopped by the air defence. Utility crews scrambled to patch up damaged power and water systems.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported Saturday that two-thirds of homes had been reconnected to electricity and all had regained access to water. The subway system also resumed service, after serving as a shelter the day before. The head of Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv province Oleh Syniehubov said Saturday that electricity had been restored to the entire region, including Kharkiv city.

In Kryvyi Rih, 596 miners stuck underground because of missile strikes, but were all eventually rescued. The International Atomic Energy Agency recently announced plans to station nuclear safety and security experts at Ukraine's nuclear power plants to prevent any nuclear accident.

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