Five people were killed by Russian shelling in the town of Khasiv Yar on Saturday, as Moscow’s forces continued their advance into Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack hit a high-rise building and a private home, said regional governor Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged between 24 and 38. He urged the last remaining residents to leave the frontline town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.
“Normal life has been impossible in Khasiv Yar for more than two years,” Filaskhin wrote on social media. “Don’t become a Russian target — evacuate.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.
Russian troops have pushed deeper into the partially occupied eastern territory, the complete conquest of which is one of the Kremlin’s main ambitions. The Russian army is approaching Pokrovska crucial logistical hub for Ukrainian defense in the area.
At the same time, Ukraine has sent its troops to The Russian region of Kursk in recent weeks in the largest incursion on Russian soil since World War II. The move is partly an attempt to force Russia to withdraw troops from the Donetsk front.
Elsewhere, the number of wounded continued to rise after Russia’s attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday.
Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old girl, when glide bombs hit five locations in the city, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said, writing on social media on Saturday that the number of wounded had risen from 47 to 96.
Syniehubov also confirmed that the 12-storey apartment building that was hit by a bomb, which caught fire and trapped at least one person on the top floor, would be partially demolished.
The number of wounded also continued to rise in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, where five people were killed by Ukrainian shelling on Friday, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. He said Sunday that 46 people had been wounded, 37 of whom were in hospital, including seven children.