Deadly shelling strikes Zaporizhzhia as Ukraine responds to report it was behind Moscow car bombing

A Russian rocket strike destroyed a five-storey apartment block in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing at least three people and leaving other residents trapped under rubble, the regional governor and emergency services said on Thursday.

Firefighters rushed through the streets to tackle the blazes after the overnight attack, and more explosions were heard on Thursday morning in what local officials said was a renewed Russian strike.

Images of the aftermath of Thursday's missile strike, which took place in the early hours of the morning, showed a gaping, rubble-strewn hole where a terracotta-coloured five-story apartment block used to stand next to a wine shop.

Twelve people were wounded, including a three-year-old child, and five were still under the rubble, said Oleksandr Starukh, the governor of Zaporizhzhia region.

Anatoly Dzyuba sat on a curb nearby, rocking back and forth, clutching his hands. His 33-year-old son, Oleksandr, lives on the second floor of the building. At the time of the missile strike, his son was at home with his wife and her parents, with all four presumed dead. 

Dzyuba told CBC News he rushed to the apartment building shortly after the attack, but quickly realized there was nothing left of his son's floor. 

"Can you bring my son back to life?" he pleaded.

Antonina Nosach wiped tears from her eyes as she stood beside two shovels and a large plastic bin she brought with her to help with cleanup. She lives 65 kilometres away in Orekhiv, but drove into Zaporizhzhia this morning after hearing about the attack.

"It is scary, of course, when they indiscriminately hit houses where people live," she told CBC. "This is our home. How can we react to this?"

The attack came just a day after President Vladimir Putin signed a law to incorporate four partially occupied regions, which represent about 18 per cent of Ukraine's territory, into Russia.

Russia moved to annex the four regions after holding what it called referendum votes that were denounced by Kyiv and Western governments as illegal and coercive.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, told Reuters on Thursday that Darya Dugina had been of no interest to Kyiv before she was killed in an August car bomb attack near Moscow.

Podolyak's comments came after a New York Times report on Wednesday indicated that U.S. intelligence agencies believe parts of the Ukrainian government approved that attack.

Reuters could not immediately verify the Times report.