Rescue workers search through rubble after the attack in Dnipro
(Picture: Getty Images)An advisor to Volodymyr Zelensky offered his resignation on Tuesday after he suggested the rocket that killed at least 44 in Dnipro had been downed by Ukrainian forces.
Oleksiy Arestovych, a top aide to the Ukrainian president, wrote on Facebook that he made a “fundamental mistake” in suggesting it was not a Russian-fired direct hit.
“I wrote a letter of resignation” he wrote on Tuesday alongside a picture of the said letter.
“I want to set an example of civilised behaviour. A fundamental mistake means resignation.”
Russian troops fired Kh-22 at the nine storey block in the city centre over the weekend, in an attack described by Mr Zelensky as a “war crime”.
Mr Arestovych further acknowledged his “serious mistake” on Ukrainian national TV.
“I sincerely apologise to the victims and their relatives, the residents of the Dnipro and everyone who was deeply wounded by my premature error version of the reason the Russian missile hit a residential building,” he said.
It is understood Ukraine forces did not have the capability to shoot down the Kh-22 weapons, despite what Mr Arestovych had said.
The missile attack is said to have left five children orphaned.
Twenty people remain missing, and 15 bodies are still unidentified.
At least 44 people were killed in the attack, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. Among them were five children.
Davos
Ukraine's first lady has called for international action to end Russian aggression during a rare international address at the World Economic Forum's annual gathering in the Swiss town of Davos.
As the anniversary of the war in Ukraine nears, Olena Zelenska said parents are in tears watching doctors trying to save their children, farmers are afraid to go back to their fields filled with explosive mines, and that "we cannot allow a new Chernobyl to happen".
She criticised government leaders and corporate executives in a speech on Tuesday for not always using their influence enough.
With the war raising inflation and expanding food insecurity in developing nations, she called it "an insult to mankind and human nature to have mass starvation".
She said the war could expand beyond Ukraine's borders and worsen the crises but "unity is what brings peace back".
