At least eight people were killed Monday, August 7, by the firing of two Russian missiles at a building in Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, a region where the Russian army also claims to be gaining ground in recent days. Agence France Presse journalists in Pokrovsk saw rescuers working around the badly damaged five-storey building, evacuating injured people amid the rubble and lowering residents trapped in their homes using the large scale.
The strike killed “five civilians and injured fourteen civilians,” Donetsk military administration chief Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram. “In addition, we are aware of two state emergency service employees killed as well as a military member. Nine police officers, a local government employee and a military man were injured,” he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously said that Russia hit “an ordinary residential building”. “Two missiles hit. An ordinary residential building was hit,” Volodymyr Zelensky posted on X, the new name for the social network Twitter. “Unfortunately there are casualties. The emergency services (…) are on the spot. The rescue of people continues.”
Ukraine’s president posted a video showing people removing rubble from a five-story Soviet-era building that lost its top floor in the hit. Pokrovsk had a population of 60,000 before the war.
“It’s time to say goodnight, but the rescue operation continues. Today we are overwhelmed with pain, anger, tears,” the Pokrovsk military administration wrote on Facebook.
Military authorities in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine further reported the deaths of two civilians, a man and a woman, in a Russian strike on Monday evening against the village of Kruglyakivka, where a bombardment had already killed two men the day before.