The death toll from a missile strike on an apartment block in eastern Ukraine has reached 34, according to a Donetsk regional official.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional state administration, said:
Already 34 dead and 9 wounded have been retrieved by rescuers from the rubble of a multi-story building in the city of Chasiv Yar. One child was among the dead.”
Kyrylenko added that as of 6.30am on Tuesday, employees of the state emergency service had cleared about 70% of the rubble, though the rescue operation is ongoing.“The Russians will bear responsibility for every destroyed and mutilated life!” he added.
In case you missed it earlier on, Russia has claimed to have killed a significant number of foreign mercenaries fighting in Ukraine in the last three weeks, including 23 from Great Britain.
In its daily operational briefing, without presenting any evidence, the Russian ministry of defence says that the total number of mercenaries active in Ukraine is not the 20,000 it says Kyiv claimed, but is about 2,700. It claims that in the last three weeks:
166 Polish militants were liquidated. Among the representatives of Georgia, 50 “soldiers of fortune” were destroyed, Great Britain lost another 23 mercenaries killed in Ukraine. Also, 21 Romanian and 15 Canadian militants were killed in three weeks.
Peter Beaumont
More on that huge explosion here …
At least seven people were reportedly killed by a Ukrainian missile strike on a large ammunition store in the town of Nova Kakhovka, in Russia-occupied Kherson.
The claims of fatalities were made by the Russian-installed administration in the town and could not be immediately verified, though footage on social media showed a large explosion lighting up the night, burning ammunition and towering smoke.
The explosion hit a warehouse close to a key railway line and a dam on the Dnipro River. Imaging from Nasa’s global fire tracking system FIRMS showed a number of secondary blazes in buildings around the initial blast site.
Ukraine says it has struck Russian ammunition depot near Kherson
Ukrainian authorities have confirmed their forces targeted a Russian ammunition depot in southern Ukraine overnight, resulting in a massive explosion.
The Ukrainian military’s southern command said a rocket strike targeted the depot in Russian-held Nova Kakhovka, about 35 miles east of the Black Sea port city of Kherson, which is also occupied by Russian forces.
The precision of the strike suggested Ukrainian forces used US-supplied multiple-launch High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, to hit the area, the Associated Press reported.
Ukraine indicated in recent days it might launch a counter-offensive to reclaim territory in the country’s south as Russia devotes resources to capturing all of the eastern Donbas region.