At least 15 people have been killed and dozens injured after a series of rockets fired by Russian forces hit a five-story apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Chasiv Yar when Moscow was accused of raising the “true hell” in the Donbas. the assault on the city of Sloviansk.
Early in the morning, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, told Telegram that more than 24 people could be trapped under the rubble of the apartment block, as rescue operations were still underway.
Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to the president of Ukraine, said the strike was “another terrorist attack” and that Russia should be designated as a “sponsoring state for terrorism.”
According to Kyiv, the building was hit by Russian hurricane rockets fired from systems transported by trucks.
Ukrainian emergency services initially gave a death toll of 10, but then revised the figure to 15.
Five people have been recovered from the rubble, while emergency services said rescuers were in verbal contact with three other people under the ruins.
“We ran into the basement, there were three blows, the first somewhere in the kitchen,” a 24-year-old resident, Ludmila, told Reuters. “The second, I don’t remember, there was lightning, we ran to the second entrance and then directly to the basement. We were there all night until this morning. ”
The Saturday night rocket assault is the latest in a recent explosion of attacks with many casualties on civilian structures.
On June 28, at least 19 people were killed after a Russian missile struck a crowded shopping mall in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, and another 21, including two children, died on July 1 when two Russian missiles hit a multi-story block. flats and a leisure center in a small coastal village near Odessa.
Russia has repeatedly stated that it is only hitting targets of military value in war. There were no comments on Chasiv Yar at a briefing by the Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday.
Chasiv Yar, with a population of 12,000, is located about 12 miles southeast of Kramatorsk, a city that is expected to be the next focus of the struggle.
Moscow is moving west after capturing the Luhansk region, which together with Donetsk forms the eastern Donbas.
Kyrylenko said on Saturday that Russia was bombing the Ukrainian-controlled city of Sloviansk “day and night.” The area has been under constant bombardment by Russian artillery from around Izium in the north and near Lysychansk in the east. The update added that the E40, the main road linking Donetsk and Kharkiv, will likely be a major target for Russian forces as they advance through the Donetsk region.
Sloviansk had a population of 107,000 before the war. Despite the threat of a Russian attack, thousands remained, reluctant to leave their homes despite being a few miles from the front.
According to the governor, 591 civilians have been killed and 1,548 wounded so far in the Donetsk region since the Russian invasion began on February 24.
Despite assessments by foreign analysts suggesting that Russia may be temporarily easing its offensive in eastern Ukraine and trying to rally its forces for a new decisive assault, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said Saturday that Moscow is raising the “real hell” in the Donbas.
“We are trying to contain the armed formations of the Russians along the entire front line,” he said. “So far, there has been no operational pause announced by the enemy. It is still attacking and bombing our lands with the same intensity as before.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine has warned residents of southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to evacuate as it prepares to launch a counteroffensive to retake the area. The Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were quickly occupied by Russian troops in late February after crossing the bridge from Crimea annexed by Russia.
After the Russians captured the Luhansk region, local authorities in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine, and Zaporizhzhia were preparing for an intensification of attacks.
Late Friday night, Iryna Vereshchuk, the deputy prime minister of the Ministry of Temporary Reintegration of Occupied Territories, urged Ukrainians from the occupied territories to leave “by all possible means.”
“You have to find a way to leave because our armed forces will be vacant. There will be a big battle. I don’t want to scare anyone, anyway everyone understands everything,” Vereshchuk said. He said evacuations were taking place and that the people from the occupied territories were aware of it.
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“The battle for southern Ukraine is still ahead and this is inevitable,” said Roman Kostenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and commander of the special forces who on the first day of the war changed his suit and tie for a uniform and hurried. on the first line of Mykolaiv. Mykolaiv, bordering the vital Black Sea port of Odessa, is seen by Moscow as a strategic goal to achieve its goal of annexing the Black Sea coast of Ukraine, making Ukraine a landlocked country. .
“The main goal of the Kremlin was to take over the south and east, and return Ukraine to its sphere of influence,” Kostenko said. “But we did not leave them, and so they had to modify their plans and concentrate their main force in the east. Its goal is to move away from our sea. They announced that these are their ‘indigenous territories’. They will try to reach the Transnistrian border because Russia created many of these quasi-republics such as DNR, LNR, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria. They are trying to connect ”.
Six rockets were fired on the city of Mykolaiv on Saturday morning, according to its mayor, Oleksandr Sienkovych. The rockets hit residential buildings and private homes, but luckily no one was injured, he said.
In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, a Russian rocket struck a residential building and injured at least six people, according to regional authorities.
The birthplace of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Kryvyi Rig, an industrial city in the center of the country, was among the attacked areas.
Over the past week, however, Ukraine has reported dozens of successful attacks on Russian command posts, which include ammunition depots. It is still unclear whether the pace at which Ukraine is destroying Russian ammunition is enough to significantly hamper its advance.
Noting his successes, Zelenskiy pleaded with the U.S. for more high-mobility artillery rocket systems (Himars), saying they were the ones who had helped Ukraine “press the enemy.” Hours later, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a package of weapons for Ukraine worth up to $ 400 million, bringing the total number of Ukrainian Himars systems to at least 12.