Ukraine: Rescuers called off the search for victims of a Russian missile attack on an apartment building in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Tuesday, with 20 people still missing and funerals taking place in the bereaved community.
Following the carnage, Ukraine's army chief Valery Zaluzhny met Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the first time in person in Poland.
According to Ukrainian authorities, a Russian strike in the eastern city of Dnipro over the weekend killed at least 45 people, including six children.
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Officials said the youngest victim was 11 months old, and one of the bodies recovered from the rubble on Tuesday was that of a child. The death toll made Saturday's attack one of the deadliest since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine in February of last year.
The Kremlin has denied responsibility for the strike, which also left 79 people injured. Several hundred people gathered in Dnipro to pay their respects to Mykhaylo Korenovsky, a Ukrainian boxing coach killed in the barrage.
"He gave many people a chance in life," Taras Ivanov, whose son trained with Korenovsky, said. "Everything inside me is shaking," the father said, referring to the coach as a "legend."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reaffirmed his pledge that anyone who "caused this terror" would be apprehended and held accountable. The search and rescue operations at the site were declared complete at 1:00 p.m. (1100 GMT).
"Twenty people remain unaccounted for," they said. A few residents of Moscow laid flowers in the snow in memory of those killed in Dnipro at a monument to Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka.
Kyiv has called for more weapons to defend itself and received pledges of British tanks over the weekend. Ukraine's army chief, Zaluzhny, said on Tuesday that he met with Milley in Poland and "outlined the urgent needs of Ukraine's armed forces."
The two "discussed Russia's unprovoked and ongoing invasion of Ukraine and exchanged perspectives and assessments," according to Joint Staff spokesperson Dave Butler. "The chairman reaffirmed Ukraine's unwavering support for sovereignty and territorial integrity." Germany announced on January 5 that it would send a Patriot missile defence battery to Ukraine, following the lead of the United States.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte signalled his "intention" Tuesday during a meeting with President Joe Biden to assist in the effort.
"We intend to join you and Germany on the Patriots project, the air-defense system," Rutte told Biden in the White House.
Putin warned that more weapons would only exacerbate fighting, and the Kremlin vowed to destroy the equipment.
US elder statesman Henry Kissinger said on Tuesday that Russia's invasion demonstrated that keeping Ukraine out of NATO, Kyiv's long-held ambition that he had previously opposed, was no longer worthwhile.
The Dnipro attack prompted the resignation of a high-ranking Ukrainian official who sparked outrage by suggesting that air defence intercepted a Russian missile, which then fell on the building. Ukraine's army said the apartment building was hit by an X-22 Russian missile that it was unable to shoot down.
Meanwhile, fighting continued across the frontline on Tuesday, with AFP journalists witnessing heavy shelling in the eastern town of Bakhmut. Outside the city, soldiers dug new trenches as tanks and armoured vehicles passed by. "It's like Verdun out there," Ivan, a military ambulance driver, said of the infamous World War I battle.
Even as shelling echoed down Bakhmut's streets, volunteers were hard at work Tuesday providing food and shelter to the roughly 8,000 people who remained in the city, many without electricity or gas but defying evacuation orders.
Tetyana Starkova, 67, was among them, clutching a paper cup of steaming tea in a crowded humanitarian hub where a Baptist group sang religious songs and residents charged phones and warmed themselves by a stove. "We sit here while it's warm, then we go home and crawl under the covers," she explained.
Nearby, the fate of the war-torn town of Soledar, which Russia claims to have seized, remained unknown. Capturing Soledar could help Russian forces advance toward their main objective since October, the nearby transport crossroads of Bakhmut.
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Both sides have admitted heavy losses in the battle for the town, and a Ukrainian military spokesman said on Tuesday that the fighting was still going on. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, said two people were killed in Russian shelling of the southern regions of Mykolaiv and Kherson.
He also claimed that two civilians were killed in Donetsk, the eastern region at the heart of recent fighting.
