Earlier in the morning, Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said on Telegram that more than 24 people may be trapped under the rubble of the apartment building, as rescue operations are still underway. Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, said the strike was “another terrorist attack” and that Russia should be labeled a “state sponsor of terrorism”. According to Kyiv, the building was hit by Russian Uragan missiles launched from truck systems. Ukrainian emergency services initially put the death toll at 10, but later revised the number to 15. Five people were pulled from the rubble, while emergency services said rescuers were in verbal contact with three other people under the rubble. “We ran into the basement, there were three bangs, the first somewhere in the kitchen,” resident Ludmila, 24, told Reuters. “The second one, I don’t even remember, there was lightning, we ran to the second entrance and then straight into the basement. We sat there all night until this morning.” Saturday night’s rocket attack is the latest in a recent spate of deadly attacks on civilian structures. On June 28, at least 19 people were killed when a Russian missile hit a busy shopping center in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, and another 21, including two children, were killed on July 1 when two Russian missiles hit a high-rise apartment building and a recreation center in a small seaside town near Odessa. Russia has repeatedly claimed that in war it strikes only targets of military value. There was no comment on Chasiv Yar at a Russian Defense Ministry briefing on Sunday. Chasiv Yar, population 12,000, is about 12 miles southeast of Kramatorsk, a town expected to be the next focus of the fighting. Moscow is grinding westward after seizing the Luhansk region, which together with Donetsk make up the eastern Donbass. Kirilenko said on Saturday that Russia was shelling the Ukrainian-controlled city of Sloviansk “day and night”. The area is under constant bombardment by Russian artillery from Izium in the north and near Lysychansk in the east. The briefing added that the E40 – the main road connecting Donetsk and Kharkiv – is likely to be a major target for Russian forces as they advance into the Donetsk region. Sloviansk had a population of 107,000 before the war. Despite the threat of a Russian attack, thousands remained, unwilling to leave their homes despite being just a few miles from the front lines. According to the governor, 591 civilians have been killed and 1,548 injured so far in the Donetsk region since the Russian invasion began on February 24. Despite estimates by foreign analysts suggesting that Russia may temporarily relax its offensive in eastern Ukraine and is trying to regroup for a decisive new offensive, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai said on Saturday that Moscow was raising the “real hell” in Donbass. “We are trying to contain the armed formations of the Russians along the entire front line,” he said. “So far no operational pause has been announced by the enemy. It is still attacking and bombing our territories with the same intensity as before.” Meanwhile, Ukraine has warned residents in southern Kherson and Zaporizhia to evacuate as it prepares to launch a counter-offensive to retake the region. Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were quickly captured by Russian troops in late February after they crossed the bridge from Russian-annexed Crimea. After the Russians seized the Luhansk region, local authorities in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine, and Zaporizhia are preparing to intensify attacks. Late on Friday night, Iryna Vereshchuk, deputy prime minister for the reintegration ministry of temporarily occupied territories, called on Ukrainians in the occupied territories to leave by “all possible means.” “You must find a way to leave because our armed forces will take over. There will be a great battle. I don’t want to scare anyone, everyone understands everything anyway,” said Vereshchuk. He said evacuations were taking place and people in the occupied territories were aware. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST “The battle for southern Ukraine is still ahead of us and that is inevitable,” said Roman Kostenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament and special forces commander who on the first day of the war swapped his suit and tie for a uniform and rushed. on the front lines of Mykolayiv. Mykolaiv, which borders the vital Black Sea port of Odessa, is seen by Moscow as a strategic target to achieve its goal of annexing Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, making Ukraine a landlocked country. “The Kremlin’s primary goal was to seize the south and the east and return Ukraine to its sphere of influence,” Kostenko said. “But we did not let them, and so they had to change their plans and concentrate their great force in the east. Their goal is to take the sea away from us. They announced that these are their “native territories”. They will try to reach the border of Transnistria because Russia created many of these quasi-democracies like DNR, LNR, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria. They’re trying to connect them.” Six rockets were fired into the city of Mykolayiv early Saturday morning, according to its mayor, Oleksandr Sienkovic. The rockets hit residential buildings and private homes, but fortunately no one was injured, he said. In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, a Russian rocket hit a residential building, injuring 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 areas targeted. However, in the past week, Ukraine has reported dozens of successful raids on Russian command posts, which include ammunition depots. It is not yet clear whether the rate at which Ukraine is destroying Russian munitions is sufficient to significantly impede their advance. Pointing to their successes, Zelensky asked the US for more highly mobile artillery missile systems (Himars), saying they were the ones that helped Ukraine “press the enemy”. Hours later, US President Joe Biden signed off on an arms package for Ukraine worth up to $400 million, bringing Ukraine’s total Himars systems to at least 12.
