“As a result of the enemy's attacks, fires broke out in the city.

There are possible victims.

Rescuers have already pulled people out of the mobs," regional governor Oleksandr Starukh wrote on the Telegram messaging app early Thursday morning.

A moment later, information came that two people had been killed in the attacks.

Several are also said to have been saved, including a three-year-old girl according to the governor, The Guardian reports.

In a status update on Telegram, the governor revises the death toll: “So far it is known about the death of a woman.

Seven people were injured of varying degrees of severity.

The rescue operation is still ongoing.

The number of victims could have been much higher, but thanks to the professional action of the rescue service, 21 people could be saved," he writes. 

More attacks during the morning

According to Ukraine's Ministry of the Interior, there were a total of seven Russian rocket attacks against the city during the night and morning.

Just before ten o'clock, Swedish time, three more powerful explosions are said to have taken place.

Smoke can now be seen rising from several places in the city center, the BBC reports.

The governor has urged the residents of the city to remain in the shelters.

"Take revenge on civilians"

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, exiled leader of the democratic opposition in Belarus, writes in a post on Twitter that the attack on the city is shameful:

"The Russian attack on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhya is another shameful act of terrorism against the population of Ukraine.

Thousands of innocent adults and children have paid with their lives for Putin and Lukashenko's war.

They lose on the battlefield and take revenge on civilians”. 

Putin: The nuclear power plant now belongs to Russia

On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin claimed that the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant now belongs to Russia.

"The government must ensure that the operations at the plant are an integral part of federal assets," the president announced in a decree.

The announcement of the takeover of the nuclear power plant came on the same day that Putin signed the law that formally means that Russia has illegally annexed four areas in Ukraine - Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk.

The signing was the last formal step in the process of Russian annexation against international law.

Earlier this week, the Russian lower and upper houses approved the annexation, which includes around 18 percent of Ukraine's territory.

The annexation is condemned by most of the outside world.