This Sunday, June 30, the region of Zaporizhia, in southern Ukraine, declared a day of mourning, the day after a Russian strike which left seven dead and nearly forty injured.
2 mins
“ June 30 is a day of mourning in the region of Zaporizhia in memory of those killed by the enemy attack on Vilniansk “, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said on social media. Indeed, three children, a woman and three men were killed in the June 29 strike on Vilnyansk, which also injured 36 people, according to the Interior Ministry. The town is 29 kilometers northeast of Zaporizhzhia, the main regional city, which is under Ukrainian control.
Images released by emergency services showed workers clearing debris, a low-rise building almost completely destroyed and officials saying the strike hit shops. Eight people were killed in 24 hours in villages in the east of the country, theUkraine. And Russian strikes against the city of Vilniansk, added to those on villages in the Donetsk region in the east, left a total of eleven dead on Saturday, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
Offensive on Toretsk
The Ukrainian military said on Saturday that the Russia continued to attack the mining town of Toretsk, where it launched an offensive in recent weeks, and that a battle was underway in the village of New York (Niou-Iork), close to the front. New York has been intensely attacked since mid-June as Russian forces advance towards the city of Toretsk, facing an adversary lacking men and ammunition. On Saturday, the Russian army had already claimed the capture of the small village of Shumy, near Toretsk.
Read alsoRussia: Moscow claims to have destroyed 36 Ukrainian drones in the west of the country
Separately, the Defense Ministry said in its daily report that Russian troops had taken control of Spirné, near the city of Lugansk already under Moscow’s control, and Novooleksandrivka, near the Ocheretyne salient.
” Accelerate » arms deliveries
After the latest deadly strikes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on his Western allies to ” accelerate » their arms deliveries. Russia claims to have annexed the Zaporizhia region but, although it occupies large areas of it, it does not completely control it. The Russian army has already attacked Zaporizhia and neighboring towns several times since its offensive in Ukraine began in 2022, but in recent weeks it has mainly concentrated its efforts in the east of the country rather than the south.
Read alsoUkraine: in Pokrovsk, bombings are part of daily life for residents