KYIV: A Russian strike on Tuesday killed 21 people during the distribution of pension payments in a frontline town of eastern Ukraine threatened by Moscow’s push to capture the entire industrial region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted amateur video showing several corpses strewn on the ground, and a burned-out minivan near a playground, images that AFP could not independently verify.
“A brutally savage Russian airstrike with an aerial bomb on the rural settlement of Yarova in the Donetsk region. Directly on people. Ordinary civilians. At the very moment when pensions were being disbursed,” Zelensky wrote online.
Moscow has claimed the industrial region as part of Russia despite not having full control over it.
Kyiv says the Kremlin has massed 100,000 troops at a key part of the front line for a fresh offensive.
Regional officials said 21 people were killed, while the Ukrainian military said Moscow had dropped a glide bomb.
Such weapons are fixed with wings to help them glide over dozens of kilometres (miles).
They are part of an arsenal developed by Russia to hit deeper into Ukrainian territory and stretch the front line.
Yarova lies about eight kilometres (nearly five miles) from the front line and had a pre-war population of around 1,900 people.
Ukraine’s Zelenskiy says Europe must clearly define security guarantees
Zelensky urged Ukraine’s allies to issue a response to the attack.
“A response is needed from the United States. A response is needed from Europe. A response is needed from the G20,” he said.
‘Strong actions’
“Strong actions are needed to make Russia stop bringing death,” Zelensky added.
The prosecutor general said that it had launched a war crime investigation.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow or the Kremlin on the strike.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian postal network, Ukrposhta, confirmed to AFP that one of its vehicles was damaged in the attack and its department head – identified as Yulia – had been hospitalised.
Ukrposhta, which delivers public services in frontline regions, said it would change how it distributes pensions and basic services there.
Russia has been steadily advancing in the eastern Donetsk region for months, concentrating its firepower on the territory and deploying troops from other parts of the front line, Kyiv has said.
Authorities in Donetsk have been appealing to civilians to flee the fighting since the early days of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said this week that Russian forces outnumbered Ukrainian troops threefold in some areas of the front, and by six times in regions where Moscow has concentrated its forces.
US President Donald Trump says he has tried to find a way to end the war in recent weeks but has little to show for his efforts.
The strike comes just days after a Russian missile crashed into the Ukrainian government headquarters in central Kyiv, the first time the complex had been hit in the three-and-a-half-year war.
Tens of thousands have been killed and millions forced from their homes in Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
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