Rocket attack strikes Donetsk mayor’s office
Commander linked to airliner downing deployed to front
KYIV, Ukraine — Pro-Kremlin officials on Sunday blamed Ukraine for a rocket attack that struck the mayor’s office in Donetsk, a city controlled by the separatists, while Ukrainian officials said Russian rocket strikes hit a town across from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, among other targets.
The attacks came as Russia’s war in Ukraine nears the eight-month mark. Kyiv also reported holding the line in continued fierce fighting around Bakhmut, where Russian forces have claimed some gains amid a seven-week Ukrainian counteroffensive that has led Russian troops to retreat from some areas around it.
The municipal mayor’s building in Donetsk was seriously damaged by the rocket attack. Plumes of smoke swirled around the building, which had rows of blown-out windows and a partially collapsed ceiling. Cars nearby were burned out. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Kyiv didn’t immediately claim responsibility or comment on the attack.
Kremlin-backed separatist authorities have accused Ukraine of numerous strikes on infrastructure and residential targets in the occupied regions. They have said Kyiv often uses U.S.-supplied long-range HIMARS rockets, but have not provided corroborating information.
Last week, the Kremlin launched what is believed to be its largest coordinated air and missile raids yet on Ukraine’s infrastructure.
The wide-ranging retaliatory attacks included the use of self-destructing explosive drones from Iran, and killed dozens of people.
Ukraine’s presidential office said Sunday that Moscow was shelling towns and villages along the front line in the east, and that “active hostilities” continued in the southern Kherson region.
Kyiv reported at least six people wounded in the latest attack on Nikopol, across from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The strikes damaged power lines, gas pipelines and a raft of civilian businesses and residential buildings, they said.
Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of firing at and around the plant.
The region of Zaporizhzhia is one of four that Moscow illegally annexed last month, despite the fact that some 20% of Zaporizhzhia remains under Ukrainian military control.
In western Russia, along the border with Ukraine, Russian officials said their air defenses shot down “a minimum” of 16 Ukrainian missiles in the Belgorod region, Russia’s Ria Novosti
reported.
Several strikes hit the region Sunday, wounding at least three people, according to local officials, and renewing questions about the security of an area that has been a key supply route for Russian troops in the war.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blasts. Ukrainian officials did not comment, in keeping with an official policy of near-total silence surrounding explosions in Russian territory.
But they appeared to be part of an uptick in attacks in Belgorod, which shares a border with Kharkiv,
the northeastern region of Ukraine that Ukrainian forces retook last month in a rapid offensive that began weeks of setbacks for Russian forces.
Meanwhile, Russia opened an investigation into a shooting in the Belgorod region Saturday in which two men from a former Soviet republic who were training at a Russian military firing range killed 11 and wounded 15 during target practice, before being slain themselves. The Russian Defense Ministry called the incident a terrorist attack.
In other developments, a Russian commander wanted
for his role in the downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine in 2014 has been deployed to the front, according to social media posts by pro-Kremlin commentators. Posts by Maksim Fomin and others said Igor Girkin, also known as Strelkov, has been given responsibility for an unspecified Russian frontline unit.
Girkin has been on an international wanted list over his alleged involvement in the downing of Kuala Lumpur-bound flight MH17, which killed 298 people. He remains the most high-profile suspect in a related murder trial in a
Dutch court, with a verdict expected Nov. 17.
Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency said Sunday it would offer a $100,000 reward to anyone who delivers him to Ukrainian forces.
Also, the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, accused Moscow late Saturday of conducting “massive, forced deportations of Ukrainians,” which it said likely amount to ethnic cleansing.
It referenced statements made this week by Russian authorities that claimed that “several thousand” children from a southern region occupied by Moscow had been placed in rest homes and children’s camps in Russia amid the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The original remarks by Russia’s deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, were reported by RIA Novosti on Friday.
Russian authorities have previously admitted to placing children from Russianheld areas of Ukraine, who they said were orphans, for adoption with Russian families, in a potential breach of an international treaty on genocide prevention.