Death toll in Russian attack on apartment tower in Ukraine hits 40

The death toll from a catastrophic Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro grew to 40 on Monday, as Western nations expanded their efforts to combat Moscow’s war machine.

The rocket attack on a nine-story residential tower killed at least three children and wounded at least 77 people, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Monday night local time. Another 25 people were still reported missing, two days after the Saturday strike.

The attack leveled the building, turning it into a tragic tangle of debris that gushed smoke as rescuers scoured for survivors.

It was one of the deadliest moments yet in a monthslong Russian air campaign that has targeted cities far from the bruising battles in Ukraine’s east.

And it came as Britain prepared to send an expansive bundle of weaponry and battle tanks to Ukraine, a significant move that Ukraine hopes will inspire other nations to follow suit. The West has so far broadly balked at providing precious tanks to the invaded nation, wary of escalating the conflict.

The office of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Saturday that Britain would send 14 tanks and about 30 AS-90 howitzers to Ukraine.

Britain’s defense secretary, Ben Wallace, said in a Monday statement to Parliament that the commitments marked the country’s “most significant package of combat power” in support of Ukraine.

“President Putin cannot win but he is equally certain to continue inflicting this wanton violence and human suffering until his forces are ejected from their defensive positions,” Wallace said in the statement. “That requires a new level of support.”

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Putin, told reporters that the “tanks burn well,” according to the Tass news agency, a Kremlin mouthpiece.

“It won’t change anything,” Peskov reportedly said of British intervention. “The special military operation will continue.”

The U.S., meanwhile, started new combat training of Ukrainian forces in Germany over the weekend, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on a trip to Europe, according to The Associated Press.

The war has sometimes faded from Western front pages across nearly 11 grinding months, and public support for European and American investments has appeared to drop.

But Putin has continued to inflict intense suffering on Ukraine’s citizens, bombarding power facilities and plunging cities into darkness this winter.

Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzheppar, said Monday that new Russian attacks on the liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson — the only regional capital captured by Russia in the war — had killed three people and wounded 24 over the previous day.

She said Russians had attacked a children’s hospital in the city. Kherson, which had a prewar population of around 280,000, was seized by the Russian Army last March and then recovered by the Ukrainian military in November.

As the Russian forces have reeled on the battlefield, losing much of the land they gobbled up in the early weeks of the war, Putin has responded with his campaign to pulverize Ukraine’s infrastructure.

Sometimes, the raining rockets have had deadly consequences for civilians.

The attack on Dnipro proved especially painful. On Twitter, Dzheppar posted heartrending images of victims, including of a 15-year-old class president and ballroom dancer said to have died in the strike.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack on Dnipro underscored “how important it is to coordinate our efforts” and described the British investment of Challenger 2 tanks as “exactly” what his country needs.

“Every day of our diplomatic marathon brings Ukraine quite specific defensive results,” Zelenskyy said Monday in a speech to his country. “And I thank everyone who helps our state.”

Zelenskyy made a daring trip to Washington last month to appeal for additional support, and President Joe Biden authorized the shipment of a Patriot air defense battery, a potent tool for fighting long-range missile attacks. The U.S. has not pledged to ship tanks to Ukraine.

“Russia has really intensified its aerial bombardment,” Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a news briefing a week ago.

He presented the Patriot defense investment as part of a broader effort by the U.S. and its allies to supply Ukraine with the “air defense capabilities that it needs to defend its population.”

America has proved one of Ukraine’s stalwart allies in Europe’s largest military conflict since World War II, but has rebuffed some of Zelenskyy’s most ambitious requests, with Biden sometimes citing the threat of World War III.

Asked whether the U.S would consider sending tanks to Ukraine, Ryder allowed that America would “have those conversations.”

“We maintain a very robust and ongoing dialogue with our Ukrainian partners,” he said last week, before Britain’s announcement. “We’ll continue to look at what their needs are based on their requests.”