A Russian missile strike gutted a hotel in downtown Zaporizhzhia, used by U.N. and other NGOs, and minutes after children attending a day camp had gone home. Photo courtesy of Ukraine Defense Ministry
Aug. 11 (UPI) -- A Russian missile strike on a Zaporizhzhia hotel hosting a children's day camp and which is used by overseas aid workers killed one person and injured 16, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
No children attending the camp for 6- to 13-year-olds were hurt in the attack on the Reikartz Hotel because the missile, which severely damaged the building, struck at 7 p.m. local time Thursday, around an hour after the campers went home, the ministry said in a Twitter post.
"Only a miracle of timing saved the children from the Russian killers today," the post read.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs said the attack on what it said was the main base for United Nations staff and other humanitarian workers serving the people of Zaporizhzhia was "utterly unacceptable."
"I am appalled by the news that a hotel frequently used by United Nations personnel and our colleagues from NGOs supporting people affected by the war has been hit by a Russian strike in Zaporizhzhia, said U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine Denise Brown.
"I have stayed in this hotel every single time I visited Zaporizhzhia. My team uses it as their base for their frequent travels to the city. It was the U.N. base for the operation to evacuate civilians from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol in May last year," Brown said.
She condemned indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure, killing and injuring civilians, which she said had "reached unimaginable levels" as violations of international humanitarian law and called on Russia to comply with its obligations and immediately halt the attacks.
Elsewhere, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said fragments of a rocket had fallen on the grounds of a children's hospital in the capital and debris had damaged a home and fallen on open ground in the Obolon district of the city.
No injuries or damage to the hospital were reported but renewed shelling of villages in the Kharkiv region killed a woman and injured two men, according to the regional military administration.
The latest strikes came hours before state-run Energoatom reported on social media that its Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant had suffered a "primary-to-secondary" water leak Thursday as a result of its main 750 kV external power line going down temporarily.
But Energoatom said there was no release of radiation from the Russian-controlled plant 78 miles downstream from Zaporizhzhia on the east bank of the Dnipro River.
The leak from a steam generator of reactor No. 4 occurred after the plant was forced to fall back on its backup 330 kV line power and place the reactor into a "hot shutdown state" in which superheated water from the core, which is normally cooled down, is recirculated, the company said.
"The incompetent and illegitimate management by Rosatom [Russia's state nuclear energy company] consistently disables the units of the seized plant. Its criminal actions and intentional damage to the equipment of power unit 4 led to the violation of the integrity of already three out of the five existing physical barriers to the spread of radiation," Energoatom President Petro Kotin wrote on Telegram.
Kotin pledged a full investigation into the water release and damage to the equipment of the primary circuit and said those involved in degrading the plant's power units to their current condition would be identified and prosecuted once Ukraine regained control of the plant.
Meanwhile, Russian authorities said air defenses had downed another drone targeting Moscow with debris falling near the Karamyshevskaya embankment of Moskva River in the east of the capital.
Emergency services were on the scene but there were no injuries or serious damage, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram.
The state-run TASS news agency reported that the Vnukovo international airport south-west of the city had restricted flight arrivals and departures for the second day in a row.
Russia said Thursday it shot down more than a dozen Ukrainian-launched drones near Moscow and the naval port of Sevastopol, in occupied Crimea.
