Rescuers yesterday recovered more bodies and some survivors from a block of flats destroyed by a rocket attack that killed 24 people in the east of the country Ukraine on Saturday, while a RussiaAt least three people have been killed in a bombing in the second largest city of Kharkiv.
The civilian deaths drove the human cost of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth month, as European capitals brace for more economic fallout, with the supply of Russian gas in question and trade-disrupting sanctions against Moscow.
In the city of Chasiv Yar, rescue workers made voice contact with two people in the wreckage of the five-storey apartment building destroyed by a rocket on Saturday, and emergency services released video of workers extracting survivors from the concrete rubble, where up to two dozen people were injured. were stuck.
But the death toll also rose steadily as rescuers dug, the state emergency service said.
A Reuters reporter saw rescuers lift a person from the ruins on a stretcher and carry two bodies in white bags. Nine people have been rescued so far, emergency services said.
Yesterday’s attack on Kharkov, further north, injured 31 people, including two children, in addition to the three dead, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said. At least one strike hit a residential building in the city, footage shows.
“I started screaming, ‘I’m still alive, get me out!'” said Valentina Popovichuk, who said she was asleep when her building was hit three or four times in the early hours.
The attack on Chasiv Yar in Donetsk province was part of Russia’s attempt to capture the entire industrial Donbas region to the east, which has been partially controlled by separatist proxies since 2014, following victory in Luhansk province earlier this month. proclaimed.
Military experts say Russia is using artillery barrages to clear the way for a renewed assault on territory by ground forces. Russian president Vladimir Putin – who says he wants to hand over control of Donbas to the separatists – yesterday relaxed rules for Ukrainians to acquire Russian citizenship.
Kharkiv, in the northeast, close to the Russian border but outside the Donbas, was heavily bombed in the early months of the war, followed by a period of relative calm that was disrupted by new shelling in recent weeks.
Moscow denies targeting civilians, but many Ukrainian towns and villages have been left in ruins. Since the February 24 invasion, attacks on a theatre, shopping center and train station have left many civilians dead.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia has carried out 34 airstrikes since Saturday, while his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Moscow should be designated a state sponsor of terrorism following the apartment bombing.
Dazed residents in Chasiv Yar collected personal belongings and told stories of their escape.
One survivor, who named her Venera, said she had wanted to save her two kittens.
“I was thrown in the bathroom, it was all chaos, I was in shock, completely covered in blood,” she said. “I never found the kittens,” she added.
The war has exposed diplomatic rifts across Europe and pushed up energy and food prices.
By applying a further phase of EU sanctions against Russia, Lithuania yesterday extended restrictions on trade through its territory to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast.
Europe’s reliance on Russian energy kept politicians and business busy, as the largest pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany began 10 days of annual maintenance. Governments, markets and companies are concerned that the closure could be extended by the war.
Ukraine’s general staff said yesterday that Russia has launched a wave of bombing raids as they try to take Donetsk, the other province in the Donbas, after taking Luhansk.
It added that the widespread shelling amounted to preparations for an intensification of hostilities from Moscow.