Russia has hit the central city, home of Ukrainian President Zelensky, with a cruise missile, as Ukraine is speeding up its territorial retake in the northeast.



Ukrainian authorities said on the 14th (local time) that eight cruise missiles fired by Russia hit a water management facility in the central city of Krivirich.



The attack caused a dam to rupture a river across the city, causing rivers to overflow into parts of the city, prompting residents to evacuate 22 streets in two districts.



Krivirich is a steel-industrial city with a population of about 650,000.



Ukrainian authorities have immediately initiated recovery and are monitoring the water level.



Authorities said 100 cubic meters of water per second poured out of the dam, causing dangerously high levels of the river, but the situation is now under control.



Russia has not made any comments on the matter.



The Wall Street Journal reported that the attack was intended to turn the city into a sea of ​​water or create a water supply.



Ukrainian authorities did not disclose which facilities were specifically attacked on the grounds that they were classified.



However, President Zelensky slammed Russia as a 'state of terror', saying it had nothing to do with military facilities.



After posting pictures of the damage on social media, he said the attack was aimed at civilians and was intended to destroy water management facilities and cause flooding.



In another speech, Zelensky denounced Russia as "a weakling who fights civilians" and "a villain who runs away from battlefields and does harm from afar."



After Russia's defeat in Kharkiv last weekend, it attacked a local power plant with a cruise missile, damaging hundreds of thousands of residents.



The Wall Street Journal analyzed that the attack appeared to be intended to cut off electricity and water ahead of the sweltering winter months.



Russia has often bombed cities far away from the battlefield, either from warships or strategic bombers, when warfare is predicted to be unfavorable.



In July, Russia fired a cruise missile from a Black Sea submarine into the city of Vinnica in central Ukraine, killing dozens, including three children.



In June, a long-range strategic bomber was launched over Krsk in western Ukraine and fired a cruise missile at a shopping center in Kremenchuk, Poltava, central Ukraine, 330 km away, killing dozens of civilians.



Russia reiterates its claims that the attacks were aimed at military installations.



(Photo=Excerpt from Instagram of Ukrainian President Vlodimir Zelensky, Yonhap News)