Russian Glide Bombs Kill at Least 15 in Zaporizhzhia, Including Three Children

Russian forces dropped five glide bombs on residential areas of Zaporizhzhia early Saturday, killing at least 15 people, including three children, and wounding 16 others. Search-and-rescue teams continued working through the rubble of a five-story apartment building whose ground floor was hit and whose upper floors collapsed.

Acting Mayor Regina Kharchenko said more than 80 workers were engaged at the sites. The strikes damaged at least 26 residential buildings across the Shevchenkivskyi and Voznesenivskyi districts, including 23 apartment blocks and three private houses. Sections of two multi-story buildings, a private house and a garage were destroyed. Blast and shrapnel damaged vehicles and nearby structures.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as Russia’s response to the U.S. announcement the previous day that it would temporarily ease sanctions on Russian diesel. He said strikes had also hit 13 other regions overnight and that any reduction in pressure was interpreted in Moscow as permission to continue the war. A six-year-old girl was among those killed when rescuers recovered her body from the collapsed section of one building.

Regional officials initially reported lower casualty figures that rose through the day as teams reached more victims. Ivan Fedorov, co-chair of the regional defence council, confirmed the higher toll. Two of the injured children were listed in serious condition. The fate of additional residents remained unknown for hours as workers cleared debris.

Zaporizhzhia, an industrial city with a pre-war population above 700,000, lies less than 30 kilometres from the front line. It has been a frequent target of Russian glide bombs and drones. The Saturday strikes followed an attack the previous day that killed one person. The city has seen intensified bombardment in recent months as both sides focus on energy infrastructure ahead of winter.

Ukrainian emergency services extinguished fires at the impact sites and continued to extract survivors. One woman was pulled alive from the rubble of a destroyed house and taken to hospital. Residents described the sudden collapse of floors and the sound of successive explosions.

The attack occurred one day after President Trump announced a phone-call agreement with President Putin under which Russia would supply hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel and the U.S. Treasury issued a temporary sanctions waiver through April 2027. Zelenskyy said the sequence showed that easing economic pressure produced no reduction in military pressure.

Russian officials have not publicly commented on the specific Zaporizhzhia strikes. The broader pattern of glide-bomb attacks on Ukrainian cities has continued throughout 2026, with residential buildings regularly among the targets. Ukrainian air defences have intercepted some munitions but have not stopped the volume of launches.

Local authorities urged remaining residents to stay in shelters while rescue work continued. The regional administration began assessing the number of people left homeless and the scale of structural damage requiring demolition or major repair. The incident adds to the cumulative civilian toll in a city that has endured repeated strikes since the early months of the full-scale invasion.