The toll could rise further in the coming hours. Rescuers resumed the search for survivors at dawn on Tuesday in the rubble of a residential building where at least seven people were killed the day before by two Russian missiles in Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, an area where the he Russian army also claims to have gained ground in recent days.
7 dead and 67 injured in strike in Pokrovsk
AFP journalists present in Pokrovsk saw rescuers working around the badly damaged five-storey building, evacuating injured people amid the rubble and lowering residents trapped in their homes with the help of a large ladder. “Seven people died. Sixty-seven were injured,” Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of Donetsk’s military administration, announced on Telegram on Tuesday, revising down a previous death toll of eight that he had given Monday evening.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko confirmed the toll of seven dead and 67 injured, adding that 29 police officers, seven rescue workers and two children are among the latter. Relief operations, interrupted during the night because of the risk of new bombardments, resumed Tuesday at dawn, he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously said that Russia hit “an ordinary residential building”. “Two missiles hit. An ordinary residential building was hit,” Volodymyr Zelensky said on X (ex-Twitter). He posted a video showing people being pulled from the rubble of a five-story, Soviet-era building that lost its top floor in the strike.
Rescue workers at work in a building damaged by a Russian strike in Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, August 7, 2023.
© / afp.com/Anatolii STEPANOV
Pokrovsk, located 70 km northwest of Donetsk, had a pre-war population of 60,000. “Today we are overwhelmed with pain, anger, tears,” the Pokrovsk military administration wrote on Facebook.
Two dead in Kruglyakivka
Military authorities in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine also reported the deaths of two civilians, a man and a woman, in a Russian strike on Monday night against the village of Kruglyakivka, where a bombardment had already killed two men the day before.
Russia advanced towards Kupyansk
On the ground, Russia assured on Monday that it had advanced towards Kupyansk, a city in eastern Ukraine located about 150 km north of Pokrovsk, in an area taken over last September by Ukrainian forces and faced with a Russian offensive. since 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 Kupiansk, a city which had between 26,000 and 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.
Ukraine “satisfied” with meeting in Saudi Arabia
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 deal to end the fighting, which Moscow had not not been invited. Representatives from some 40 countries, including China, India, the United States and Ukraine attended the meeting in Jeddah.
The United States 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 another unsuccessful attempt by the US administration to turn its wishes into reality. 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.