By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
KRYVYI RIH/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – A frail Pope Francis urged prayers for Ukraine on Sunday on the day that Russia claimed to have captured two villages in the east and south of the war-torn nation despite talks of a ceasefire by U.S. President Donald J. Trump stumble. The latest fighting happened while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown plunged into mourning after one of the deadliest Russian attacks there so far.
Footage showed a woman shocked when she watched the smoke towering over the city from her balcony.
A Russian missile hit the central city of Kryvyi Rih that local authorities said killed at least 18 people, including some nine children.
Moscow claimed it had carried out “a high-precision missile strike” with a high explosive warhead on a restaurant where a meeting with Ukrainian unit commanders and Western instructors took place. Kyiv rejects the claims.
Flowing this strike, another person reportedly died here in a separate Russian drone strike, officials said.
Now, a woman showed the damage to an apartment. She desperately searched for belongings that could be used to rebuild a shattered life.
Besides those killed ,as many as 80 people were injured in attacks since Friday, the youngest a 3-month-old, authorities said.
About half of them remained in hospital, with many in serious condition. It deeply touched Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as Kryvyi Rih is his hometown.
NO PEACE?
He says Russia isn’t interested in peace, despite efforts by U.S. President Trump to reach a ceasefire.
Four people were also reportedly killed in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, where a strike hit a hotel complex, and 21 others were injured, including a pregnant woman.
However, Russian authorities claim they suffer too, with at least one person reported dead in the Russian-occupied town of Horlivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region due to Ukrainian shelling on Saturday.
Yet Moscow struck back Sunday, claiming to have captured two villages in eastern and southern Ukraine.
The defense ministry said Moscow’s forces captured the village of Shchebraki in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and Panteleimonivka in the eastern Donetsk region.
President Zelenskyy also said that Russia had launched more than 170 drones into Ukraine overnight, striking several regions, including Kyiv, Sumy, and Kharkiv.
The bloodshed raised fears that U.S. hopes of an Easter peace deal may remain wishful thinking as prayers mount for an end to a war that is said to have killed and injured more than a million people.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
Senate Republicans say they have enough support within their 53-member conference to pass the SAVE America Act, but overcoming a Democratic blockade may require reviving the rarely used “talking filibuster.”
The U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense have transported a small nuclear reactor by military cargo aircraft for the first time, marking a significant milestone in President Donald Trump’s push to expand advanced nuclear energy across the country.
President Donald Trump on Monday directed federal authorities to step in and coordinate cleanup efforts following what he called a “massive ecological disaster” in the Potomac River after a major sewer line collapse in Maryland.
A large Second Temple–era stone workshop that supplied Jerusalem’s Jewish population some 2,000 years ago has been uncovered on the eastern slopes of Mount Scopus, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Monday.
The United States has moved to replenish its stockpile of GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker-buster bombs, it was revealed this week, as tensions with Tehran remain elevated.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday that Israel will not accept any arrangement allowing Hamas to retain weapons, warning that the terror group must fully disarm or face a renewed Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
The United States is preparing to deploy roughly 200 American troops to Nigeria in the coming weeks to assist in counterterrorism efforts, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.