By Sergiy Chalyi and Max Hunder
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Twelve people, including three children, were killed in a Russian attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday, a day after US President Donald Trump announced a deal to lift sanctions on Russian diesel in a major setback for Kyiv.
A six-year-old girl was among those killed when one strike reduced part of an apartment block to rubble. Her grandfather stood sobbing over her body, laid on the ground in a white
bag, after rescuers pulled it from the wreckage.
"Today, Russia said thank you for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in some of his sharpest criticism yet of the White House.
Fourteen others were wounded in the attack on Zaporizhzhia, an industrial city whose outskirts lie less than 30 km (20 miles) from the frontline.
The bombardment was the latest in a series of recent high-casualty strikes across Ukraine. Nearly 80 civilians were killed in Russian strikes over two days earlier this week.
"Her birthday would have been at the end of the month," Anatoliy Chumniy, the grandfather of the six-year-old girl, said through tears.
Local governor Mykhailo Semikin said Russia hit several locations simultaneously in the early hours of Saturday.
Rescuers clambered through crumbled masonry to pull other residents of the building out alive. One man, whose leg was trapped in the rubble, screamed in pain as he was being freed.
Zaporizhzhia, with a pre-war population of over 700,000, has been a regular target of Russian bombardment with strikes intensifying in the past few months.
"Last night became yet another confirmation that Russia perceives any easing of pressure as a signal that it can supposedly keep fighting, that it can supposedly keep dropping bombs on cities. Different signals are needed," Zelenskiy said.
TRUMP LIFTS DIESEL SANCTIONS
Trump's decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports comes as his administration seeks to curb fuel prices, which have risen sharply during the US conflict with Iran.
Kyiv had instead urged Washington to increase pressure on Moscow in an effort to force it into serious negotiations to end the four-and-a-half-year war.
Trump, meanwhile, has criticised Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, which he claims have driven up global prices. Kyiv has said it wants a total halt on all energy strikes by both sides as Moscow pummels Ukraine's power grid.
On Saturday, parts of Kyiv and the surrounding region were left without power, bringing the city's metro trains to a complete halt for the second time this week.
The latest strikes came after Ukrainian and European officials held talks with US negotiators in Miami on Friday aimed at developing a common proposal for ending the war, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
Trump announced the diesel deal while the negotiations were underway, a move Zelenskiy said caught Kyiv by surprise.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said after a call with Trump that an immediate resumption of peace talks was unlikely, citing Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow.
Four civilians were killed and five others were wounded as a result of Ukrainian attacks on the Russian-controlled Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, the Russian-installed governor said on Saturday.
Reuters could not independently verify the report and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
(Reporting by Sergiy Chalyi in Zaporizhzhia and Max Hunder in LvivEditing by Ros Russell)
