The residential building in the town of Chasov Yar was hit on Saturday evening as Russia re-intensified its attack on towns in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to take control of the entire Donbass region.
The State Office for Emergency Situations reported that the bodies of 15 people have been found under the rubble so far and search and rescue operations continue.
As of 1:00 p.m. local time (6:00 a.m. ET), emergency workers had rescued five people and made contact with three others who were still buried under the rubble, the agency said in a statement.
Emergency services added that 24 people, including a child, “may still be under the rubble”.
Pavlo Kirilenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration, told Ukrainian television that the area had been hit by two or three Russian missiles and that the incident was “another confirmation of the crimes of the Russian Federation, confirmation that they are shelling residential areas.” “
Chasov Yar and other towns in Donetsk have come under heavy shelling in recent days as Russian forces try to crush Ukrainian resistance in the area and move further west towards Kramatorsk and Slavyansk.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its troops destroyed a hangar with US-supplied M777 howitzers, long-range weapons and dozens of Ukrainian “fighters” near Chasov Yar.
CNN cannot independently verify the Russian claims. Ukrainian officials said the strike hit a railway station in Chasov Yar and that several people were injured in the attack.
Donetsk and Luhansk are the two regions that together form Donbass, the eastern part of Ukraine where the conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists began in 2014. The region has become a key focus of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military ambitions in Ukraine after his troops failed to capture Kyiv earlier this year.
Russian troops have now captured almost all of Luhansk Oblast, the head of the Luhansk Regional Military Administration, Sergey Haidai, said in a cable on Saturday, adding that some 300,000 people from the area had been forced to flee their homes.
Lisychansk, the last town still under Ukrainian control in Luhansk, fell to Russia last week.
Since then, Russian troops have focused on the Donetsk region, shelling wide areas along the front line and pushing from the Luhansk region into the Donetsk region, according to Heyday.
The Ukrainians have been defending this area from Russian attacks for over a month.
“We are trying to contain the armed formations of the Russians along the entire front line,” Heyday said, adding that “occupation forces have achieved minor successes and are continuing their advance west of Lisichansk.”
Attacking Russian supply lines
Meanwhile, Ukraine continued its campaign to attack Russian supply lines and ammunition depots in the occupied areas well behind the front lines.
A Ukrainian said a long-range strike hit a Russian military unit in the occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine.
Sergii Khlan, a member of the Kherson regional council, said on Sunday that there had been a “precision strike on the military unit of the occupiers” in the city of Kherson. Images and video geolocated to Kherson showed a thick plume of gray smoke rising into the air on Sunday morning.
Khlan told Ukrainian television that Russia’s defenses were unable to intercept Ukrainian artillery fire “thanks to modern Western weapons” that Ukrainian troops are using.
Sunday’s attack followed a series of explosions on Saturday near Kherson. Ukrainian officials said the Ukrainian military struck Russian military supplies at the airport in Chernobayevka, north of the city.
The Mykolaiv and Kherson regions have also become hot spots in the conflict, with Ukrainian forces stepping up fire on Russian storage and supply lines in the occupied territory to the south and Russia using artillery fire to try to prevent Ukrainian advances.
Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported early Saturday that air defenses had been activated in Kherson.
RIA Novosti quoted the pro-Russian military-civilian government as saying that there was shelling from the direction of Nikolaev. “Air defense is operating over Kherson,” the administration said on its Telegram channel.
The United States announced its new supplies of arms and humanitarian aid to Ukraine in recent days.
The Biden administration will provide Ukraine with four more high mobility artillery missile systems in the latest security aid package, a senior defense official said on Saturday. And the US State Department has announced an additional package of humanitarian aid for Ukraine totaling nearly $368 million.
CNN’s Manvina Suri, Yulia Kesaeva and Josh Pennington contributed reporting.
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