Apartment attack in Ukrainian city raises death total

KYIV, Ukraine — The death total from a missile attack on some apartment buildings in a Ukrainian city rose to 11 as more Russian missiles and explosive-packed drones targeted the city of Zaporizhzhia on Friday.

As the war was sparked by Russia in its February invasion of its neighbor, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to human rights organizations in Russia and Ukraine, and an activist jailed in Russian ally Belarus.

Asked by a reporter whether the prize shared by Belarus rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties should be seen as a "birthday gift" to Vladamir Putin, the President of Russia. Berit Reiss-Anderson, a committee chair, said no.

“The prize is not addressing President Putin, not for his birthday or in any other sense, except that his government, as the government in Belarus, is representing an authoritarian government that is suppressing human rights activists,” Reiss-Andersen said.

Putin illegally claimed four regions of Ukraine this week, including Zaporizhzhia, which is home to a nuclear power plant.

Fighting that occurs near the power plant has harmed the U.N.'s atomic energy watchdog. An accident that happens there could possibly release 10 times more lethal radioactivity than Chernobyl did 36 years ago, says Ukrainian Environmental Protection Minister Ruslan Strilets. 

“The situation with the occupation, shelling, and mining of the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants by Russian troops is causing consequences that will have a global character,” Strilets told The Associated Press in an email interview.

Russia has deployed Iranian-made drones to attack Ukrainian targets with its army losing ground. The cheap and sophisticated "kamikaze drones" are proved effective at causing damage to ground targets.

The regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones damaged two infrastructure facilities in the city of Zaporizhzhia. The drones later came back again and left one person injured.

The toll of Russian S-300 missile strikes on the city rose to 11 as another 21 people were rescued from the rubble of the destroyed apartment buildings.

“This was not a random hit, but a series of missiles aimed at multi-story buildings,” Starukh wrote on his Telegram channel.

Russia was reported to have converted the S-300 from its original use as a long-range antiaircraft weapon into a missile used to produce ground attacks because of a shortage of more suitable weapons.

The Ukrainian military said a majority of the drones shot down Thursday and into Friday were the Shahed-136. The weapons are unlikely to significantly affect the course of the war, however, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said.

“They have used many drones against civilian targets in rear areas, likely hoping to generate nonlinear effects through terror. Such efforts are not succeeding,” analysts at the think tank wrote.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s ability to capture and put back into service Russian tanks and other equipment continues to be an important factor to repel the invasion.

Ukrainian forces have captured at least 440 tanks and about 650 armored vehicles since the start of the war, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Friday.

“The failure of Russian crews to destroy intact equipment before withdrawing or surrendering highlights their poor state of training and low levels of battle discipline,” the British said. “With Russian formations under severe strain in several sectors and increasingly demoralized troops, Russia will likely continue to lose heavy weaponry.”

The Ukrainian military also said Friday that 500 former criminals have been prepared to reinforce Russian ranks in the Donetsk region, where Ukrainian forces have retaken some of its territory. The new units are commanded by officers drawn from law enforcement, the military said.

U.S. President Joe Biden warned Thursday that Putin has driven the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” to the highest level since the Cuban Missle Crisis that took place in 1962. Russian officials have spoken of the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons to defend Russia’s territory, including the newly annexed regions of Ukraine.

Speaking at a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Biden said Putin was “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he called Putin on Friday to congratulate him on his 70th birthday and they discussed possibly meeting on the sidelines of an Asia-related summit in Kazakhstan sometime next week.

Erdogan told Putin that Turkey was ready to fulfill its part in a “peaceful resolution of the Ukraine issue in a manner that would be to the benefit of everyone,” according to the Turkish leader’s office.

In the Czech capital, European Union leaders converged on Prague Castle to try to bridge significant differences over a natural gas price cap as winter nears and Russia’s war on Ukraine fuels a major energy crisis.

As the Europeans bolster their support for Ukraine in the form of weapons, money, and aid, Russia has reduced natural gas to 13 member nations, leading to surging gas and electricity prices that could climb higher.