Aug 11 (Reuters) - Seven workers were killed at a Ukrainian steel plant on Tuesday during a Russian attack on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia in which President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Moscow used North Korean ballistic missiles.
The Zaporizhstal plant was forced to suspend production after being hit as Russia pummelled Zaporizhzhia with Zircon hypersonic missiles, guided aerial bombs and ballistic missiles supplied by Pyongyang.
"The ballistic missile strike hit as employees were making their way to a shelter immediately after the air-raid alert was sounded," parent company Metinvest Group said in a statement that put the death toll at seven.
The attack brought production at the plant to a complete halt, and other damaged sites were operating at reduced capacity, the company said.
Regional governor Ivan Fedorov posted photos of buildings and vehicles ablaze after the strike, which also damaged four residential buildings. At least 24 people were injured. No damage was reported at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Russia's defence ministry said Russian forces had struck a metallurgical plant in Zaporizhzhia that produces flat-rolled steel which it said was used by the Ukrainian military.
The ministry also said Russian forces had struck the Nova Poshta sorting complex in Kyiv, which it described as used to distribute dual-use goods, including components for drones and electronic warfare equipment.
The attacks followed a Ukrainian drone strike that Russian authorities said on Monday had killed at least 13 people and wounded 39 in Nizhnekamsk, one of the heaviest civilian tolls in Russia in months. Ukraine said it had hit the city's TANECO oil refinery.
Another Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and injured two overnight in Russia's Voronezh region, and caused fires at warehouse facilities, the regional governor said. Russian online retailer Wildberries, whose warehouses have frequently been targeted by Ukraine, said it had evacuated its logistics facilities in the Voronezh region for safety reasons.
Six people were also killed overnight in the Ukrainian regions of Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk, Ukrainian officials said earlier on Tuesday.
INCREASED ATTACKS
Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has increased ballistic missile attacks in recent months, trying to exploit Ukraine's shortage of high-end air defences.
Moscow did not immediately say whether it had used North Korean missiles in the attack on Zaporizhzhia. There was no comment from Pyongyang.
A Ukrainian military intelligence official said last week that a North Korean missile unit had begun deploying to western Russia and could be equipped with 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers for strikes on Ukraine.
Russia has fired scores of North Korean ballistic missiles at Ukraine since late 2023, but the deployment of North Korean missile forces would be an expansion of the already extensive military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.
Zelenskiy said on Saturday that "a decision has been made for 30,000 to 50,000 North Koreans to be deployed on the territory of Russia" to fight for Moscow.
Zelenskiy called on allies to respond without hesitation, saying "all of this shows that Moscow is preparing not for peace, but for escalation."
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Timothy Heritage)
