2 Ukrainian women are pulled alive from rubble hours after Russian missile strike

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Rescue crews working through the night pulled two women from rubble more than seven hours after a Russian missile struck a private medical clinic in a southern Ukraine city, killing eight people and wounding 22 others, authorities said Wednesday.

The women called rescue services on their cellphones to say they were buried under the rubble after the attack late Tuesday in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s Emergency Services said.

Deadly Russian strikes on civilian areas have been a feature of the almost three-year war. Ukraine's Western allies are sending more aid to help it keep fighting Russia's invasion, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Zaporizhzhia strike showed that his country still needs more air defense systems.

He urged Western partners to send weaponry they are holding in their arsenals.

“We currently do not have enough systems to protect our country from Russian missiles. But partners have these systems,” Zelenskyy said late Tuesday in his daily address to the nation.

Air defense systems that Ukraine’s allies possess “should save lives, and not gather dust in storage bases,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine kept up its long-range attacks on areas behind Russian lines that are supporting its war effort.

A Ukrainian drone attack caused a blaze at an industrial facility in Russia’s Bryansk region, Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said.

Air defenses downed 14 Ukrainian drones over the Bryansk region early Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Also, a Ukrainian missile attack on the city of Taganrog in the Rostov region early Wednesday damaged an industrial plant, regional Gov. Yuri Slusar said.

Zelenskyy thanked Ukrainian forces for hitting what he called “military facilities on the territory of Russia, as well as facilities of the fuel and energy complex.”

“It is precisely such long range and accuracy that step-by-step bring Russia back to reality — to the reality that the war must be ended,” he said on Telegram.

It wasn't possible to verify either side's claims.

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