More than 80 rescue workers picked through the ruins of an apartment block in Zaporizhzhia on Saturday, stopping every few minutes to listen for any sound from survivors buried underneath.
Five Russian glide bombs slammed into residential buildings in the south-eastern Ukrainian city on Saturday morning, killing at least 15 people — including three children — and wounding at least 16 more. More residents are still missing, believed trapped under the rubble, officials said.
Photos and video from the scene, reported by the BBC, show an apartment block mostly destroyed. "The ground floor was hit, and the floors above just collapsed," acting Mayor Regina Kharchenko told Ukrainian television from the site.
Kharchenko said Russia had struck at "our very heart" — and that "our littlest ones" were among the dead, calling it "awful grief for their families. For the city."
Zaporizhzhia is a major regional centre of more than 700,000 people, sitting less than 10 miles from the front line. It is hit by Russian drones and missiles relentlessly.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack was Moscow expressing "its thanks" for a U.S. deal announced Friday night easing sanctions so America can import Russian diesel — a deal Kyiv warns will bankroll more bombs. Thirteen other Ukrainian regions came under attack overnight, he said.
Russia took "any easing of pressure to mean they can keep fighting," Zelenskyy said.
The diesel agreement — and Trump's call for Ukraine to replace its president — is covered in full in our earlier report: [Trump–Putin Diesel Deal Slammed as Russian Strikes Kill 17 in Ukraine](/news/trump-putin-diesel-deal-slammed-as-russian-strikes-kill-17-in-ukraine.html).
The Zaporizhzhia strike is not an outlier — it is the pattern. The United Nations reports civilian casualties in Ukraine jumped 55% in the first eight months of this year.
With winter closing in, Russia has renewed its campaign against power and energy infrastructure — the same playbook as previous years. Some Kyiv residents are already packing bags for the countryside, the BBC reports, fearing a dark, freezing winter.
Kyiv has answered by striking deep inside Russia at the money: oil refineries, fuel terminals — and, in a newer twist, data centres owned by tech giant Yandex, which is now struggling to keep services running. Ukraine says every refinery taken offline is revenue Moscow cannot turn into glide bombs.
In Toronto, the worst sentence in that BBC report lands hardest: rescuers stopping work to listen for noises under concrete. This city holds one of the largest Ukrainian diasporas on earth — parents here read about "our littlest ones" in Zaporizhzhia and picture their own kids' classrooms.
For Haitian-Toronto artists like Young Hadene, the image hits a second nerve. Haiti knows rubble. Haiti knows the hours after, when neighbours dig with their hands and the whole world watches for a day and moves on. The lesson from Port-au-Prince to Zaporizhzhia is the same: the cameras leave, but the listening — for survivors, for justice, for peace — has to continue.
Sources: BBC News (Vitaly Shevchenko, Tom McArthur), Reuters, United Nations. Toronto context from the Young Hadene newsroom.
At least 15 people, including three children, with 16+ wounded and more missing under the rubble, per Ukrainian officials cited by the BBC.
He said Russia expressed "its thanks" for the sanctions easing by bombing homes, and warned any easing tells Moscow it can keep fighting.
Yes — the UN reports civilian casualties jumped 55% in the first eight months of this year.
By striking Russian oil refineries, fuel terminals and data centres to cut the revenue funding Moscow's war.