Ukrainian clinics hit in deadly Russian missile strike

A Russian missile hit a clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, killing at least two people and wounding 23 in an attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as a crime against humanity.

Video footage showed a devastated building with smoke pouring out of it. Much of the upper floor of what appeared to be a three-storey building had been badly damaged, as had cars parked nearby. A covered corpse lay in the road nearby.

Regional Gov. Serhiy Lysak said a 69-year-old male passerby had been killed. The governor said another man's body had been pulled out of the rubble, and that 21 of the 23 wounded had been taken to hospital, with three seriously hurt.

"Another missile attack, another crime against humanity," Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter, describing the damage to a psychology clinic and a veterinary clinic in Dnipro.

"Only an evil state can fight against clinics. There can be no military purpose in this. It is pure Russian terror."

WATCH l Scenes from the destruction in Dnipro:

The Ukrainian Defence Ministry called it a serious war crime under the Geneva Conventions, which set out how soldiers and civilians should be treated in war.

Russia's Defence Ministry said it had carried out an overnight strike on Ukrainian ammunition depots.

"The target of the strike has been achieved. All designated facilities were hit," the RIA news agency quoted the ministry as saying.

Moscow has dismissed allegations that its soldiers have committed war crimes and denies deliberately targeting civilians, although it has bombarded cities across Ukraine since invading 15 months ago.

Ukrainian officials said earlier on Friday that air defences had shot down 10 missiles and more than 20 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks on the capital Kyiv, Dnipro and eastern regions.

Zelenskyy's office said a fire had broken out on the outskirts of the northeastern city of Kharkiv after an oil depot was hit twice, and that equipment for pumping oil products had been damaged.

Also, a Russian S-300 missile hit a dam in the Karlivka district of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk province, placing nearby settlements under threat of severe flooding.

Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president who is now the Kremlin's security council deputy chairman, said Friday negotiations to end the war were impossible as long as Ukraine's Western-backed Zelenskyy was in power.