Russia Accused Of Raising ‘True Hell' After Deadly Attack On Block Of Flats

At least 15 people died and dozens were injured when rockets fired by Russian forces hit a five- storey block of flats in the town of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine late on Saturday as Moscow was accused of raising “true hell ” in Donbas, stepping up the assault on the city of Sloviansk.

- Lorenzo Tondo

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region , said on Telegram yesterday that more than 24 people could be trapped under the rubble of the apartment block, as rescue operations were still under way.

Andriy Yermak , the chief of staff to Ukraine’s president, said the strike was “another terrorist attack ”, and that Russia should be designated as a “state sponsor of terrorism” .

According to Kyiv, the building was hit by Russian Uragan rockets, fired from truck-borne systems. The Ukrainian emergency services initially gave a death toll of 10, but later said the number ha d risen to 15.

Five people have been recovered from the rubble, while the emergency services said rescuers were in verbal contact with three other people under the ruins.

“We ran to the basement, there were three hits, the first somewhere in the kitchen,” a local resident, Ludmila, 24, told Reuters. “The second , I do not 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.”

The Saturday night rocket assault is the latest in a recent burst of high-casualty attacks on civilian structures.

On 28 June, at least 19 people died after a Russian missile hit a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, and another 21, including two children, were killed on 1 July when two Russian missiles struck a block of flats and a recreation centre in a small coastal town near Odesa.