At least 15 people were killed, five wounded and more than 20 may still be trapped in the rubble after a Russian shelling of a residential building in a town in the eastern Ukrainian province of Donetsk, which Russia seeks to conquer.
“During the rescue operations, 15 people were found dead at the scene and five people were rescued alive.”reported the Emergency Situations Service in Ukraine about the attack in the town of Chasiv Yar.
Rescuers were in contact with three people alive under the rubble, the emergency service added in a statement on Facebook.
The building of Chasiv Yar, a town of 12,000 inhabitants, was partially destroyedand rescuers were working with an excavator to clear the area, the AFP news agency reported.
“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.”Sergi Gaidai
Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kirilenko said on Telegram that the four-story building had been hit by a Russian Hurricane missile, which is fired from truck-borne systems.
So far 591 civilians have been killed and 1,548 injured in the Donetsk region since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, Kyrylenko said.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not comment on the attack during the press conference given on Sunday morning.
Chasiv Yar is about 20 kilometers southeast of Kramatorsk, a town that is expected to be a major target for Russian forces as they push west.
The latest Russian military targets
Donetsk province, in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbass region is Moscow’s main target in Ukraine since it conquered neighboring Lugansk province a week ago.
Russian forces are raising “real hell” in the Donbass, despite assessments that they were taking an operational pausesaid last Saturday the governor of Lugansk, Sergii Gaidai.
After the taking of Lisichanskthe last city of Lugansk held by the Ukrainian troops, some analysts predicted that the Russian Army would probably take some time to rearm and regroup.
But “so far there has been no operational pause announced by the enemy. He is still attacking and bombing our lands with the same intensity as before,” Gaidai assured.
The attack on the building in Chasiv Yar is the latest in a recent wave of shelling of civilian structures.
At least 19 people were killed when a Russian missile hit a shopping center in the city of Kremenchuk in Poltava province in late June, and 21 people were killed when a building and a recreational area were attacked in the southern region of Odesa east month.
