Local authorities reported on Sunday that a five-story apartment building in Ukraine’s Donetsk region was struck by Russian Uragan rockets, resulting in at least 15 deaths and the fear of another 20 being trapped.
While Moscow claimed its forces attacked Ukrainian army hangars housing US-produced M777 howitzers, a type of artillery, near Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region, Ukraine also reported clashes with Russian forces on fronts in the east and south.
The strike on the apartment building happened on Saturday night in the town of Chasiv Yar, according to Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
On Sunday afternoon, the local emergency service reported 15 fatalities, adding that 24 more people might still be trapped beneath the rubble.
We ran towards the second entrance and then directly into the basement during the second (strike), which I cannot even recall. From last night until this morning, we sat there.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, claimed in a Telegram post that the attack was “another terrorist attack” and that as a result, Russia ought to be labelled as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Russia, which claims to be carrying out a “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine, rejects accusations that it intentionally targeted civilians.
The Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has long been Europe’s largest battleground, is made up of the provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk.
For the benefit of the separatists it backs, Russia wants to seize control of the Donbas.
Moscow claims that driving the Ukrainian military out of the area is a key component of its over four-month-old “special military operation” to ensure its own security. The West refers to this offensive as an unprovoked war.
U.S. howitzers
The Ukrainian military reported that Russian forces had launched a cruise missile attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv from their side of the border but that they had been forced to retreat after attacking Ukrainian positions close to the town of Sloviansk in Donetsk. It made no mention of the casualties or damage.
Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, claimed that Russian forces were assembling near the village of Bilohorivka, which is located about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Sloviansk.
The enemy is shelling nearby towns and conducting airstrikes, but it is still unable to quickly occupy the entire Luhansk region, he wrote on Telegram.
