The rocket attack on the five-storey residential block in Chasiv Yar on Saturday night also left 20 people trapped in the rubble, the emergency service said. Rescuers were in voice contact with two people under the wreckage, he said. The missile attack was part of Russia’s push to seize all of Donetsk province, which is part of the industrial Donbass region in the east along with Luhansk province, where Moscow declared victory earlier this month. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had carried out 34 airstrikes since Saturday, while his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Moscow should be designated a state sponsor of terrorism for the apartment bombing. In a separate incident, an apartment building in Kharkiv, in the northeast but outside Donbass, was hit by a rocket overnight, but no casualties were reported, authorities said, adding that a school was also hit. Moscow denies targeting civilians, but Ukrainian cities, towns and villages have been left in ruins by Russian bombardment since the February 24 invasion, with basements and bomb shelters the only safe place for those left. On Sunday, rescuers in Chasiv Yar deployed a crane to lift a slab of concrete and used their hands to dig through the rubble, while dazed residents who survived the attack retrieved personal belongings and told stories of their escape. A woman was seen walking out of the damaged building carrying an ironing board under her arm, an umbrella and a plastic shopping bag. Others simply watched the rescue efforts, fearing the worst as the dead were carried away. “We ran into the basement, there were three knocks, the first somewhere in the kitchen,” said a resident who gave her name as Ludmila. “The second one, I don’t even remember, there was lightning, we ran to the second entrance and then straight to the basement. We sat there all night until this morning.” Another survivor, who gave her name as Venus, said she wanted to save her two kittens. “They threw me in the bathroom, it was a mess, I was in shock, covered in blood,” she said, crying. “By the time I left the bathroom, the room was full of rubble, three stories down. I never found the kittens under the rubble.” Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the conflict a “special military operation” to demilitarize neighboring Ukraine and rid it of nationalists. Ukraine and its Western allies say Putin’s war is an imperial-style land grab and have accused his forces of war crimes. Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II has killed thousands, left cities and towns in ruins and seen more than 5.5 million Ukrainians flee their country.
WAVE OF BOMBING
Ukraine’s general staff said on Monday that Russian forces have launched a wave of shelling in the east as they seek to take control of all of Donbas, a region partially controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. He said the widespread shelling amounted to preparations for an intensification of hostilities. After seizing Luhansk province, Russian forces are now focusing on seizing control of Donetsk in the south. On Monday, the TASS news agency cited separatist officials and a source in Luhansk as saying that Russian and Russian-backed forces were in control of three villages in Donetsk province. Russia abandoned an early advance on the capital Kyiv in the face of stiff resistance bolstered by Western weapons. Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk on Sunday warned civilians in the Russian-held Kherson region in the south to leave urgently as Kiev forces prepare a counter-offensive there. He did not give a timetable for action. “I know for sure that there should not be women and children there and that they should not become human shields,” he said on national television. read more Reuters could not independently verify reports on the battlefield. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report from Reuters offices. writing by Michael Perry and Frank Jack Daniel. edited by Stephen Coates and Mark Heinrich Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
