War against Ukraine: 11 killed and dozens wounded in missile strikes as Volodymyr Zelensky 'disappointed' over locked bomb shelter

Russian missiles have rained down on a central Ukrainian city overnight, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than two dozen in a warehouse and an apartment building, regional officials said.

​The attack in Kryvyi Rih – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home city – comes as Ukrainian forces are in the early stages of a counter-offensive, more than 15 months after Russia invaded.

Russian forces have unleashed overnight missile strikes repeatedly against targets across Ukraine in recent weeks, and Tuesday’s toll was among the highest from a single attack.

In late April, missile strikes hit an apartment building in the central city of Uman, killing 23 people, including six children.

Emergency workers inspect a damaged multi-storey apartment building caused by the latest rocket Russian attack in Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine. Picture: AP Photo/Andriy Dubchak

Images from the latest missile attack relayed by Mr Zelensky on his Telegram channel showed firefighters battling a blaze as flames poked through broken windows in the damaged apartment building. Charred and damaged vehicles littered the ground.

“More terrorist missiles,” he wrote. “Russian killers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people.”

The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, wrote on Telegram the bodies of seven people were recovered from a private company’s warehouse, and “another four destinies were cut short” at the apartment building. He said search operations had been called off.

Kryvyi Rih mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said on the social media app that 28 people were wounded.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its military fired missiles at Ukrainian operational reserves and a depot with Western weapons and ammunition.

It comes as Mr Zelensky said he was "disappointed" in the state of the country's bomb shelters, after it emerged people died trying to access a locked shelter.

Mr Zelensky vowed to take action over the issue after presenting a report at a meeting with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's staff, which showed just 15 per cent of the 4,655 shelters in Kyiv were functional with no issues.

Three people – a 33-year-old woman, a 34-year-old woman and her nine-year-old daughter — were killed in Kyiv on June 1 during a missile strike while they were trying to access a shelter.

"Today's meeting included a final report on the readiness and lack of readiness of shelters across the country, in major cities, and in Kyiv," the president said. “The results are disappointing, to put it mildly.”

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has meanwhile been attacked with Iranian-made Shahed drones, and the surrounding region was shelled. The shelling wounded two civilians in the town of Shevchenkove, south east of Kharkiv.

The mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, separately reported the drone strike damaged a utilities business and a warehouse in the city’s north east.

The Kyiv military administration reported the capital came under fire as well, but the incoming missiles were destroyed by air defences.