Russian missiles strike center of Ukrainian city; death toll 5
KYIV, Ukraine — Two Russian missile strikes hit the center of the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region Monday evening, killing at least five people and wounding two dozen more, Ukrainian officials said.
The strikes, which targeted the Ukrainian portion of a region partially occupied by Russia, occurred within 40 minutes of each other, according to Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. The attack damaged nine- and five-story buildings, residential houses, a hotel where foreign journalists used to stay, dining establishments, shops and administrative buildings, he said.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said five people, including a local official of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, were killed and 31 more were wounded by the strikes. Nineteen policemen, five rescuers and one child were among the wounded, Klymenko said.
The Suspilne news site, however, cited the head of the Pokrovsk City military administration, Serhiy Dobriak, as saying seven people were killed and 27 were wounded. The conflicting reports could not be immediately reconciled.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an online statement accused Russia of trying to leave nothing but “broken and scorched stones” in eastern Ukraine. His remarks accompanied footage of a damaged five-story residential building with one floor partially destroyed.
The deadly attack came just a day after officials from around 40 countries gathered in Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful settlement for the war in Ukraine.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday denounced the two-day talks in Jeddah as not having “the slightest added value” because Moscow — unlike Kyiv — wasn’t invited.
A statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry repeated previous assurances that Moscow is open to a diplomatic solution on its terms that would end the 17-month-old war, and that it is ready to respond to serious proposals. The Kremlin’s demands include Kyiv recognizing its annexation of four Ukrainian regions, which Russian forces at this point only partially control, and Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, ruled out Moscow’s previous demands that would give Russia time to dig in deeper in the parts of Ukraine it has occupied. He said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Russian forces must fully withdraw from the occupied areas and there would be no compromise by Kyiv on that.
U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo participated in the Jeddah meeting by video, and U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the United Nations welcomes all diplomatic initiatives and wants “to keep pushing forward toward any form of a peace that is based on the U.N. Charter, including on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
Also Monday, Russian shelling struck a nine-story residential building in the city of Kherson, killing one person and wounding four others, according to regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin. He said Kherson had endured a “tough night” as the Russians “covered the central part of the city with fire.”
A 57-year-old woman was killed and four people were wounded in the Russian shelling of a village in the northeastern Kharkiv province, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.