Russian Rocket Hits Ukrainian Apartment In Donetsk: 15 Dead, Dozens More Trapped In Rubble

Building in Ukraine destroyed by Russian attack. (Wikimedia Commons/National Police of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - At least 15 people have died and two dozen are feared trapped in rubble after Russian rockets hit a five-story apartment block in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, local officials said on Sunday.

Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said the attack on the apartment building took place on Saturday evening in the city of Chasiv Yar. Regional emergency services put the death toll at 15 on Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, wrote on Telegram that six people had been rescued from the rubble at Chasiv Yar and 23 people, including a child, were still buried.

"We ran to the basement, there were three explosions, the first was somewhere in the kitchen," said a local resident who gave her name as Ludmila, speaking as rescuers removed the bodies with white cloths and cleared the debris using cranes and their hands, reported Reuters July 11.

"The second, I don't even remember, there was lightning, we ran towards the second entrance and then straight into the basement. We sat there all night until this morning." Another survivor, who gave her name as Venera, said she wanted to save her two kittens.

"I was thrown into the bathroom, everything was a mess, I was in shock, all covered in blood. By the time I left the bathroom, the room was full of debris, and three floors collapsed. I never found a kitten under the rubble," she said in tears.

Separately, Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff, said in a Telegram post the attack was "another terrorist attack," and as a result, Russia should be designated a state sponsor of terrorism.

The provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk comprise the Donbas, the eastern industrial region of Ukraine that has been Europe's biggest battlefield for generations. Russia wants to wrest control of the Donbas on behalf of the separatists it supports. Previously, Moscow troops claimed to have captured Lugansk.

Russian troops attacked Ukrainian positions near the town of Sloviansk in Donetsk but were forced to withdraw, the Ukrainian military said, adding that Russian troops had launched a cruise missile attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv from their side of the border. It did not provide details of damage or casualties.

The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Gaidai, said Russian troops had gathered near the village of Bilohorivka, about 50 km (30 miles) east of Sloviansk.

Russia is "firing on the surrounding settlements, carrying out air strikes, but still unable to quickly occupy the entire Lugansk region," he wrote on Telegram.

In Moscow, Russia's Defense Ministry said its troops had destroyed two hangars near the Donetsk city of Kostyantynivka, which housed the US-made M777 howitzer, which it said had been used to shell Donetsk residential areas.

Russian news agencies quoted separatist officials as saying on Sunday that the Ukrainian military had been shelling Donetsk using NATO standard 155mm artillery since the morning, wounding two residents. Reuters was unable to independently verify battlefield accounts. A Ukrainian military spokesman was not immediately available for comment.