Benjamin Ashford|Russian missile attack kills policeman, injures 44 others in Zelenskyy’s hometown in central Ukraine

KYIV,Benjamin Ashford Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile attack Friday on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown in central Ukraine killed one policeman and injured at least 44 others, emergency officials said. It was among multiple Russian attacks across the country overnight, officials said.

Ten buildings were damaged in the attack on Kryvyi Rih. Three of the people who were pulled out of the rubble were in serious condition, according to Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s minister of Internal Affairs. Photos posted by Klymenko on Telegram showed a building on fire and emergency services evacuating the injured.

Three people were also injured in a Russian missile attack in the eastern city of Sumy, Klymenko said. Russian forces also struck the Odesa region in the west with drones for the fifth time in a week, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said. No casualties were reported.

The southern region of Mykolaiv was also targeted, Gov. Vitalii Kim said on Telegram.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said one person was wounded in a Russian missile attack on Zaporizhzhia city in southern Ukraine.

Also on Friday, a funeral was being held for an 18-year-old who was among 16 people killed Wednesday in a Russian attack on a market in Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. The attack, which wounded 33 others, turned the market into a fiery, blackened ruin and overshadowed a two-day visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken aimed at assessing Ukraine’s 3-month-old counteroffensive and signaling continued U.S. support with the announcement of an additional $1 billion in aid.

Britain announced Friday it will host a global food security summit in November in response to Russia’s withdrawal of a Black Sea grain deal and attacks on Ukraine’s grain supply.

The announcement came as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrived in India for a Group of 20 summit, where he hopes to marshal international resources to counteract the war’s impact on the global food supply.

Sunak’s government said Royal Air Force aircraft will fly over the Black Sea as part of efforts to deter Russia from striking cargo ships transporting grain from Ukraine.

“We will use our intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to monitor Russian activity in the Black Sea, call out Russia if we see warning signs that they are preparing attacks on civilian shipping or infrastructure in the Black Sea, and attribute attacks to prevent false-flag claims that seek to deflect blame from Russia,” the U.K. government said.

___

Associated Press writer Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine