2023-08-08 05:16:09
(Pokrovsk) At least eight people were killed on Monday when two Russian missiles fired at a building in Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, a region where the Russian army also claims to be gaining ground in recent days.
Updated yesterday at 11:16 p.m.
AFP journalists in Pokrovsk saw rescuers working around the badly damaged five-story building, evacuating injured people amid the rubble and lowering residents trapped in their homes using the ladder .
This strike killed “five civilians and injured fourteen civilians”, said on Telegram the head of the military administration of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko. “In addition, we are aware of two employees of the state emergency services killed as well as a soldier. Nine policemen, a local administration employee and a soldier were injured,” he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously said that Russia had hit “an ordinary residential building”.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY HEAD OF THE DONETSK REGIONAL MILITARY ADMINISTRATION PAVLO KYRYLENKO, VIA REUTERS
“Two missiles hit. An ordinary residential building was hit,” Zelensky posted on X, the new name for the social network Twitter. “Unfortunately there are victims. Rescue […] are on site. The rescue of people continues.”
Ukraine’s president posted a video showing people removing rubble from a five-story Soviet-era building that lost its top floor in the hit.
Pokrovsk had a population of 60,000 before the war.
“It’s time to say goodnight, but the rescue operation continues. Today we are overwhelmed with pain, anger, tears,” the Pokrovsk military administration wrote on Facebook.
Military authorities in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine further reported the deaths of two civilians, a man and a woman, in a Russian strike on Monday evening against the village of Kruglyakivka, where a bombardment had already killed two men the day before.
Russian advance
Russia assured on Monday that it had advanced towards Kupiansk, a city in eastern Ukraine located about 150 km north of Pokrovsk, in an area recaptured last September by Ukrainian forces and which has been facing a Russian offensive for several weeks.
“Over the past three days, Russian soldiers have made an advance in this direction from a depth of more than three kilometers on an 11-kilometer-long stretch of the front,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily bulletin. .
According to the same source, this is the area between the villages of Vilchana and Perchotravnevé, northeast of Kupyansk, a town which had some 26 to 28,000 inhabitants before the conflict.
Ukraine had admitted in mid-July to be in a “defense position” in the Kupyansk region, the Russian army having launched an offensive there. Since then, Moscow has ensured that it is nibbling on the ground.
Kyiv forces began a massive counter-offensive in June to try to retake the eastern and southern territories occupied by the Russian army.
Progress so far, however, has been quite limited, with Russia having built strong lines of defense, made up of trenches, anti-tank booby traps and minefields.
The Kupiansk area and most of the Kharkiv region were recaptured from the Russian army last September after a surprise offensive by Ukrainian forces. Today it is one of the rare stretches of the front where Russia is on the offensive.
Ukraine says it foiled attack on Zelensky
Ukraine’s security services (SBU) said Monday they arrested a woman accused of helping Russia plan an attack on President Volodymyr Zelensky during a visit to Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine.
In a statement, the SBU said it had arrested a “Russian intelligence informant who was gathering intelligence on the president’s planned visit to the Mykolaiv region”, close to the front line, in view of a “massive air attack “.
PHOTO ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
According to the same source, this woman who worked in a store on a military base “tried to establish the time and the list of places of the provisional itinerary of the head of state in the region”.
The SBU released a blurred photo of the woman, held by officers, along with phone messages and handwritten notes about military activities.
Volodymyr Zelensky stressed on Monday on Telegram messaging that the SBU had informed him of this attempted attack and kept abreast of the “fight against traitors” in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president visited the Mykolaiv region in June after the rupture of the Kakhovka dam, which caused the flooding of large parts of southern Ukraine, and at the end of July after deadly bombardments.
In its press release, the SBU specifies that it took “additional security measures” for the visit of Volodymyr Zelensky, but did not immediately arrest the woman, “in order to obtain new information about her Russian “sponsors” and the tasks assigned to him”.
According to the SBU, she sought in particular to obtain information on the location of electronic warfare systems and Ukrainian ammunition warehouses, then was arrested “in flagrante delicto” while trying to pass her information to the Russian secret services. .
She is accused of unauthorized dissemination of information on the movement of weapons and troops and faces up to 12 years in prison, said the security services.
Ukrainian justice regularly announces the arrest of people living in Ukraine accused of transmitting information to help the Russian army.
Summit in Jeddah
On the diplomatic front, Ukraine said on Monday it was “satisfied” with the summit held in Saudi Arabia over the weekend on a possible peace agreement aimed at ending the fighting, which Moscow had not not been invited.
Representatives from about 40 countries, including China, India, the United States and Ukraine participated in this meeting in Jeddah.
The United States has hailed as “productive” the participation of China, which has provided diplomatic support to Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine, without going so far as to help it militarily, but has also intensified its diplomatic efforts. .
The initiative was greeted with contempt by Moscow. “We have witnessed yet another failed attempt by the US administration to make wishes come true. There was no diplomatic success in Jeddah,” commented Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov, quoted by the Ria Novosti agency.
The diplomat added that it was futile to discuss the crisis in Ukraine without Russia’s participation. “Does anyone still not understand that in such a situation it is impossible to achieve a concrete result? he wondered.
“We think China’s presence has been productive,” Miller said. “We have long believed that China has a role to play in ending the war in Ukraine if it agrees to play a role that respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.” The summit in Jeddah is worthless according to Moscow.
#War #Ukraine #Day #dead #Russian #strikes #attack #Zelensky #foiled