Russian Missile Attack on Dnipro Kills 2-year-old, Injures 22

A handout photo made available by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine shows Ukrainian rescuers work on a place of rocket hit in the Dnipro area, central Ukraine, late 03 June 2023, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE / HANDOUT
A handout photo made available by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine shows Ukrainian rescuers work on a place of rocket hit in the Dnipro area, central Ukraine, late 03 June 2023, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE / HANDOUT
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Russian Missile Attack on Dnipro Kills 2-year-old, Injures 22

A handout photo made available by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine shows Ukrainian rescuers work on a place of rocket hit in the Dnipro area, central Ukraine, late 03 June 2023, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE / HANDOUT
A handout photo made available by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine shows Ukrainian rescuers work on a place of rocket hit in the Dnipro area, central Ukraine, late 03 June 2023, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE / HANDOUT

A 2-year-old girl was killed and 22 people injured, including five children, when a Russian missile struck near the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional governor said on Sunday.
"Overnight, the body of a girl who had just turned two was pulled from under the rubble of a house," Serhiy Lysak wrote on the Telegram messaging channel.
Seventeen people were being treated in hospital after the attack on a residential area by Iskander short-range cruise missiles, Reuters quoted Lysak as saying.
Reuters could not independently verify the report. There was no immediate reaction from Moscow.
Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipropetrovsk region council, said 17 children have died in the region since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
"No words can soothe the pain of parents who have lost the most precious thing in their lives," Lukashuk said.
The war has killed at least 485 children in Ukraine and injured nearly 1,500, the country's Office of the Prosecutor General said on Sunday on Telegram.
The missile hit between two two-story residential buildings in the Pidhorodnenska community, partially destroying them and damaging a number of houses, cars and infrastructure, Lysak said.
"Once again, Russia proves it is a terrorist state," Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on Saturday after the first reports of the explosions.
Moscow and Kyiv deny their military forces target civilians.
Pictures posted on social media showed rescue teams working at a shattered, smoldering building amid piles of twisted building materials.
Following the attack in Dnipro, Russia launched a new wave of overnight air strikes on the country. Ukraine's air force said on Sunday it destroyed more than half of the air targets.
Four of the six cruise missiles and three of the five Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia were downed, the air force said on Telegram.
Kyiv's city military administration earlier said all Russia-launched targets approaching the capital had been intercepted. It was not immediately clear where the missiles and drones that were not destroyed hit.
Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukraine's capital since May, chiefly at night, ahead of a long-expected Ukrainian counteroffensive to reclaim territory, in what Ukrainian officials say is an attempt to inflict psychological distress on civilians.



German Police Say 4 Women and a Boy Were Killed in the Christmas Market Attack

Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
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German Police Say 4 Women and a Boy Were Killed in the Christmas Market Attack

Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)

More details emerged Sunday about those killed when a man drove a car at speed through a Christmas market in Germany, while mourners continued to place flowers and other tributes at the site of the attack.

Police in Magdeburg, the central city where the attack took place on Friday evening, said that the victims were four women ranging in age from 45 to 75, as well as a 9-year-old boy they had spoken of a day earlier.

Authorities said 200 people were injured, including 41 in serious condition. They were being treated in multiple hospitals in Magdeburg, which is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin, and beyond.

Authorities have identified the suspect in the Magdeburg attack as a Saudi doctor who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had received permanent residency.

The suspect was on Saturday evening brought before a judge, who behind closed doors ordered that he be kept in custody pending a possible indictment.

Police haven’t publicly named the suspect, but several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appears to have been an active user of the social media platform X, accusing German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe.”

The horror triggered by yet another act of mass violence in Germany make it likely that migration will remain a key issue as German heads toward an early election on Feb. 23.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party had already been polling strongly amid a societal backlash against the large numbers of refugees and migrants who have arrived in Germany over the past decade.

Right-wing figures from across Europe have criticized German authorities for having allowed high levels of migration in the past and for what they see as security failures now.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is known for a strong anti-migration position going back years, used the attack in Germany to lash out at the European Union’s migration policies.

At an annual press conference in Budapest on Saturday, Orban insisted that “there is no doubt that there is a link between the changed world in Western Europe, the migration that flows there, especially illegal migration and terrorist acts.”

Orban vowed to “fight back” against the EU migration policies “because Brussels wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary, too.”