More than 20 people are believed to remain trapped on Sunday. The strike late Saturday destroyed three buildings in a residential quarter of the city of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk province, which is mostly populated by people working in nearby factories. Donetsk’s provincial governor said the city of about 12,000 people was hit by Russian Uragan missiles fired from truck-based systems. Chasiv Yar is 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of Kramatorsk, a city that is a major target for Russian forces as they grind westward. On Sunday night, rescuers managed to remove enough of the bricks and concrete to free a man who had been trapped for nearly 24 hours. Paramedics put him on a stretcher and he was rushed to the hospital. Ukraine’s Emergency Services said the latest rescue brought to six the number of people dug from the rubble. Earlier on Sunday, they made contact with three others still trapped alive under the rubble. Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk region, said an estimated 24 people were still trapped under the collapsed building, including a 9-year-old child. Cranes and excavators worked alongside rescue teams to clear the rubble of a building, its walls completely sheared off by the impact of the strike. Rescuers continued to work in the rain despite the dangerous conditions. The pounding of artillery on the nearby front line echoed just a few miles away, causing some workers to flinch and others to run for cover. Rescuers work on a residential building damaged by a Russian military attack in the city of Chasiv Yar, Ukraine on July 10, 2022 [Gleb Garanich/Reuters]
“I’m waiting for a miracle”
Valerii, who gave only his first name, was desperate to hear from his sister and 9-year-old nephew, who lived in the collapsed building, and had not returned his calls since Saturday night. “Now I’m waiting for a miracle,” he said as he stood in front of the ruins and began to pray, hands tightly clasped together. “We don’t have good expectations, but I avoid such thoughts,” he said. Viacheslav Boitsov, deputy head of emergency services in the Donetsk region, told The Associated Press later Sunday that four shells hit the neighborhood and were likely Russian Iskander missiles. Residents said they heard at least three explosions and that many people were seriously injured in the blasts. Saturday’s attack was the latest in a series of raids against civilian areas in the east, even though Russia has repeatedly claimed it only hits targets of military value in the war. Twenty-one people were killed earlier this month when an apartment building and a recreation area were hit by rockets in the southern Odesa region. At least 19 people were killed when a Russian missile hit a shopping center in the city of Kremenchuk in late June. There was no comment on the Chasiv Yar attack at a Russian Defense Ministry briefing on Sunday. Donetsk is one of two provinces – along with Luhansk – that make up the Donbas region, where separatist rebels have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014. Russian forces are raising “real hell” in the Donbass, despite estimates that they have taken an operational pause, Luhansk Governor Serhi Haidai said on Saturday. After the recent seizure of Lysychansk – the last remaining Ukrainian-controlled town in Luhansk – some analysts predicted that Moscow’s troops would likely need some time to re-equip and regroup. But “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,” Haidai said.
