Tag: Eastern Ukraine

2 Russian missile strikes hit a city in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 5 people, officials say

Two Russian missile strikes hit the city center of the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region Monday evening, killing at least five people and wounding two dozen more, Ukrainian officials said.

The strikes, which targeted the Ukrainian portion of a region partially occupied by Russia, occurred within 40 minutes of each other, according to Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. The attack damaged nine- and five-story buildings, residential houses, a hotel where foreign journalists used to stay, dining establishments, shops and administrative buildings, he said.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said five people, including a local official of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, were killed and 31 more were wounded by the strikes. Nineteen policemen, five rescuers and one child were among the wounded, Klymenko said.

The Suspilne news site, however, cited head of the Pokrovsk City Military Administration Serhiy Dobriak as saying that seven people were killed and 27 were wounded. The conflicting reports could not be immediately reconciled.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an online statement accused Russia of trying to leave nothing but “broken and scorched stones” in eastern Ukraine. His remarks accompanied footage of a damaged, five-story residential building with one floor partially destroyed.

The deadly attack came just a day after officials from around 40 countries gathered in Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful settlement for the war in Ukraine. Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday denounced the two-day talks in Jeddah as not having “the slightest added value” because Moscow — unlike Kyiv — wasn’t invited.

A statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry repeated previous assurances that Moscow is open to a diplomatic solution on its terms that would end the 17-month-old war, and that it is ready to respond to serious proposals. The Kremlin’s demands include Kyiv recognizing its annexation of four Ukrainian regions, which Russian forces at this point only partially control, and Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.

But Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, ruled out Moscow’s previous demands that would give Russia time to dig in deeper in the parts of Ukraine it has occupied. He said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Russian forces must fully withdraw from the occupied areas and there would be no compromise by Kyiv on that.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-saudi-arabia-zelenskyy-3719f5684487c25da4ff69755e841b6f

Russian strike in eastern Ukraine kills eight including toddler

Sloviansk lies in a part of the Donetsk region that is under Ukrainian control. It is close to territory controlled by Russia. (Photo: AFP/Ihor Tkachov)

Russia shelled a block of flats in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk on Friday (Apr 14), killing eight people including a toddler who was pulled out of the rubble but died in an ambulance on the way to hospital, authorities said.

The strike on the quiet neighbourhood came as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a Bill that will make it easier to mobilise citizens into the army, and block them from fleeing the country if drafted.

Russia also said it was pushing further into the hotspot of Bakhmut, 45km south-east of Sloviansk, which is one of the cities that will be at risk if Kyiv loses the longest and bloodiest battle of the war.

Sloviansk lies in a part of the Donetsk region that is under Ukrainian control.

“Twenty-one people were wounded and eight people died,” Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said on Ukrainian television after the strike devastated an apartment building.

He said that the child who died was a boy.

AFP journalists saw rescue workers digging for survivors on the top floor of the typical Soviet-era housing bloc, and black smoke billowing from homes on fire across the street.

“A child died in an ambulance after being pulled out from the rubble,” Ukrainian police said on Twitter.

Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska said that the child was a two-year-old boy and sent her condolences to the family during this “indescribable grief”.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier decried Russia for “brutally shelling” residential buildings and “killing people in broad daylight”.

The street below – including a playground – was covered in a layer of concrete dust and debris, including torn pages from school books and children’s drawings.

SHOCKED RESIDENTS

“I live on the opposite side of the street and I was sleeping a little when I heard this huge boom and I ran out from my flat,” 59-year-old resident Larisa told AFP.

“I was really scared and in a state of shock,” she said, adding that the impact of the shelling had broken her windows and sent shards of glass flying throughout her home.

“I heard a woman screaming: ‘There’s a child here, there’s a child here.’ She was screaming so much.”

At another impact site in a residential neighbourhood, an elderly woman in a purple cardigan – dazed from the blasts – was gathering blown-off shards of metal from the ground outside a shop.

A resident nearby, who declined to give her name, told AFP journalists that the strikes had blown out her windows and dislodged her front door from its frame.

“Usually when this happens we immediately take cover in the bathroom,” she said.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/ukraine-invasion-russian-strike-sloviansk-kills-six-including-toddler-3419131
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