“The Russians cynically attacked the city in the middle of the day,” regional head Ivan Fedorov said, adding that two guided aerial bombs hit residential buildings.

Footage has emerged showing one high-rise building ablaze, and a number of vehicles on fire.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on allies to put pressure on Russia “for its terror”. The Russian military has not commented. President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In a video message from outside the bombed site, Fedorov said the Russian shelling began at about 16:00 local time (14:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

He said that two guided bombs struck residential buildings. Earlier he had said “industrial infrastructure” had been targeted.

Graphic images posted online showed first responders treating casualties on the roadside, several vehicles on fire and a stationary tram with its windows shattered.

In one video, at least two minibuses are seen with their windows blown out and what appear to be casualties lying amid rubble and debris on the road.

Zaporizhzhia lies close to the front line.In a statement later on Wednesday, President Zelensky said that “there is nothing more cruel than launching aerial bombs on a city, knowing that ordinary civilians will suffer”.

And appealing to Ukraine’s allies for more support, he said “that only through strength can such a war be ended with a lasting peace”.

A day of mourning will be declared across the Zaporizhzhia region on Thursday.

As many as five people may still be trapped under rubble after Tuesday’s strike on a private clinic and residential buildings in the city centre, police say.

Overnight, rescuers pulled out two women from the wreckage. They are now being treated in hospital. A search and rescue operation is continuing.

Zaporizhzhia regional head Ivan Fedorov says Russia fired a ballistic missile, most likely an Iskander. Russia’s defence ministry has not commented.

Expressing condolences to the victims’ relatives, Fedorov also vowed that Russia would pay for “every Ukrainian life taken and mutilated”.

“We will not forgive!” he said.A day of mourning has been declared in the Zaporizhzhia region on Wednesday.

Ukraine has repeatedly asked its Western allies to provide more advanced air defence systems to repel almost daily Russian missile and drone attacks.

Shortly after the Zaporizhzhia attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated that plea.

“We don’t have enough systems to protect our country from Russian missiles. But our partners have these systems. Again and again, we repeat that air defence systems should save lives, not gather dust in warehouses,” he said.

In a separate development on Tuesday, Ukraine and Russia accused each other of launching a drone attack on a convoy of vehicles transporting experts from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The agency said one of its cars was “severely damaged” as the convoy was heading to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). No injuries were reported.

IAEA head Rafael Grossi condemned the attack on his staff as “unacceptable”, stressing that the agency was “working to prevent a nuclear accident during the military conflict”.

Russia seized the ZNPP – Europe’s largest nuclear power plant – soon after launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Zaporizhzhia is one of Ukraine’s four south-eastern regions Russia claims to have annexed since 2022, without fully controlling any of them.

In 2014, Moscow illegally annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula.